Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Lack of Vision

The most frustrating thing about the Royals during the Allard Baird Era for me was a lack of vision. An example of this is signing Reggie Sanders, then not trading him. Reggie Sanders was a role player on contending team. For a team that was rebuilding or should have been rebuilding Reggie Sanders should have only been seen as a means to acquire prospects. It now seems that the front office of the team now under Dayton Moore is having an identity crisis. There are 2 reasons that I say this team is suffering because of DMGM's lack of vision.

1. Age- Much like Baird acquiring role players on a noncontending team, Dayton Moore has made a few moves which don't make much sense for the state the club is in. Moves like signing Willy Bloomquist (having a utility guy who isn't young is okay) and even Jose Guillen were okay (yes he was older and didn't fit in with the youth movement, and yes we paid too much, but the idea was to improve the offense which I suppose could have happened) by at least some point of view. After all, you can't rebuild with just young players (Herm Edwards/Carl Peterson). The move of bringing in a guy like Ryan Freel though seems silly. How does Ryan Freel fit in with this ball club? Ryan Freel is a utility player who does EXACTLY what Bloomquist does. Aside from 2006 his defense has never really been outstanding either. This isn't to say Ryan Freel has no value, but he isn't a fit with the Royals. His roster spot could be better served by letting someone like Kila Ka'aihue play and just keeping Mitch Maier in the OF.

2. Philosophy For Winning- What is Dayton Moore's vision of a winning ballclub? From the moves we've seen, I don't know what he's wanting. The three ways to win would seem to be good hitting and pitching, pitching and defense, or all 3. Moore has made moves to make this club into a decent pitching, terrible defense and offense club. This is obviously not a way to win. Quite frankly it seems like Moore gets ADD when he thinks about his vision for this team. Guillen and Jacobs for power, then players like Pena and Crisp are acquired for defense. What we end up with is a team that has holes on both offense and defense because DM won't stick with a plan. He simply needs to build an offense or a defense. It doesn't matter which, it just matters that he picks one and sticks with it. I would suggest going the route of pitching and defense since it would be cheaper and it has more (no play on words) pieces in place. For this to happen players like Callaspo and Guillen need to go. Try and parlay them into another pitcher and a good AAA 2B and Shortstop. If this team could get an easily attainable infield of Kila/Butler, Brent Lillibridge at 2nd, Chin-Lung Hu at short and Gordon at 3rd this is a better team. If the team can manage an OF of DDJ, Maier (next year Crisp) and Francouer, then the team would be much better on defense. Thats pitching and defense. Plus its not like the offense could be any worse...

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