Fan Interference

On Wednesday Dayton Moore was fired as the President of Baseball Operations for the Kansas City Royals. He’d only garnered that title this year, but he’d been their General Manager since 2006.

Here’s the Royals history in a nutshell under his leadership: From 2006-2012 they never lost fewer than 90 games in a season. Then they caught lightning in a bottle with several young players all maturing and gelling together. They had a winning record in 2013, an AL pennant in 2014, and a World Series Championship in 2015. They’d reached the peak, and that buys a lot of good will. How much credit should Moore get for that? I don’t know, but I don’t think many owners hire a front office leader with a 10-year plan…and I don’t think he had one. Anyway, after that, many of those young stars were not re-signed and left for greener pastures. The Royals dropped to 81-81 in 2016 and haven’t reached .500 again since then.

This season, there were pundits touting them as a sleeper pick to be in contention in the AL Central. They’ve had a number of highly regarded draft picks who were felt ready to debut in the majors. There were times this year where as many as 6 rookies were in the starting lineup. Instead of progress in the standings, however, they are 61-89. The record is only that good because they just completed their first series sweep of the entire season (sorry, Happy). Failed expectations, even if over-optimistic, lead to change. In that regard, if ownership is not satisfied with the team makeup/team building process, then he fired the right guy.