State of the Central: The Kansas City Royals
/Between the prominent presence of Royals fans in the Internet baseball writing landscape - Joe Posnanski, Rany Jazayerli, Jeff Passan, and Rob Neyer to name a few - the Royals' recent trolling of the White Sox, and my petty schadenfreude when they fail, I have paid a lot of attention to the Royals in the past few years. Dayton Moore has also just been interesting in his own right, making grand proclamations only to backpedal from them as his promises of a winning team in 5-years was then revised to 6, 7, 8 and then 10 years as the Royals kept losing. Moore has his strengths as a GM. He added a lot of talent to the Royals' minor league system* and got a very good return on Zack Greinke from the Brewers. Salvador Perez looks like a nice find, and he's squeezed more value out of Jeremy Guthrie and Bruce Chen than one might anticipate. At the same time, since his hiring in June of 2008, the only hitters on the major league roster who look like they can hack it are (1) Eric Hosmer, a #3 overall draft pick who plays first base and is currently slugging .391; (2) Lorenzo Cain, a player I like a lot, who was part of that Greinke trade I was praising earlier; and (3) Salvador Perez, not necessarily because I think he's a very good hitter, but rather that I think he's a good enough hitter for a good fielding catcher. Otherwise, the offense still largely depends on Alex Gordon and Billy Butler, two guys acquired by Allard Baird before Moore arrived.
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