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Kansas City Royals: Dayton Moore Struck Out This Offseason

By Leigh Oleszczak

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It’s been a season full of disappointment for the Kansas City Royals. Dayton Moore had a rough offseason after a World Series title and it’s hurt the team in 2016.

Heading into the offseason this year, KC Royals fans were stoked after winning the World Series last season. Nothing could bring them down after watching their favorite baseball team win it all despite having one of the lowest payrolls in the major leagues.

Fast forward to early August and fans are pretty bummed out. For one, the Royals are several games under .500, several games back of the second Wild Card spot, and let’s not even get to how far out of the American League Central race they are.

The Royals have struggled with injuries this season, that’s for sure. The other thing that has been disappointing, however, is the offseason that general manager Dayton Moore had.

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Now look. I’m not hating on Dayton Moore for his efforts. This guy singlehandedly made baseball relevant in Kansas City again, and that wasn’t an easy task.

He did, however, have a dreadful offseason heading into this year though, and it’s definitely worth discussing.

Moore gave out two of the biggest contracts in team history this offseason; One to Alex Gordon and the other to Ian Kennedy. Gordon is beloved in Kansas City, but Kennedy was a mediocre pitcher in San Diego.

Moore also re-signed Chris Young on a two-year deal and he brought back Joakim Soria after years away on a three-year deal.

These are the four deals that just look like awful mistakes this season. Let’s dive in deeper (all stats are as of August 5th before the game against the Blue Jays):

Don’t let one bad offseason lead you to lose trust in Dayton Moore.

  • Alex Gordon is slashing .202/.305/.336 in 302 plate appearances and 77 games. He’s been awful this season. Yes, Gordon suffered an injury back in May, but he was struggling even before then. Gordo has struck out a whopping 87 times already. Not good.
  • Ian Kennedy is probably the most bearable out of all of the offseason contracts, but the fact that the team was trying to ship him off doesn’t say a lot. Kennedy has a 4.03 ERA in 22 starts and has given up 26 home runs.
  • Chris Young was terrible this season. He has a 6.59 ERA and was just brutal as a starter. He’s given up 26 home runs.
  • Joakim Soria has a 4.50 ERA and has blown ten leads for the team. He is probably the least liked player for the Royals right now and any time he’s running out of the bullpen, Royals nation is nervous as hell.

Putting all of these into perspective, it’s easy to see why fans would be upset, but Dayton had his reasons for bringing all of these guys either back or onto the team in general.

Gordon is a hero in Kansas City. He’s struggled this season, but had he gone to another team, fans would have been devastated. The image of him pointing to the stands after belting the game tying home run in Game 1 of the World Series is an iconic one, and likely the image Royals fans will associate with him for the rest of his career.

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Kennedy was brought in to eat innings. The large contract was given out because unfortunately, that was the going rate for starting pitchers during the offseason. Other free agent starters the Royals could have gotten were Scott Kazmir (4.41 ERA with the Dodgers), Mike Leake (4.80 ERA with the Cardinals), and Yovani Gallardo (5.70 ERA with the Orioles), all of whom have higher ERAs than Kennedy.

Young helped the team out a lot last season, both in the regular season and in the playoffs. It could be argued that he was the MVP of Game 1 of the World Series. Unfortunately, it just hasn’t been there for Young this season and he’s struggled with keeping his pitches in the ballpark.

Soria was brought back after years of pitching elsewhere and has had an up and down season. He started off awful, then went on to only allow runs in two out of 23 appearances, and now he’s back to sucking. He gave up a three-run homer to give the Rays the win on Thursday, when the Royals led the entire time.

Next: Ten Worst Contracts in Royals History

Simply put – Dayton Moore had a rough offseason, but that doesn’t mean he sucks at his job. He’s done well bringing in talent like Ryan Madson and Kendrys Morales, and has put this team back on the baseball map.

Don’t let one bad offseason lead you to lose trust in Dayton Moore. These types of things happen to everyone and general managers can’t strike gold with every signing.

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