2019 MLB Season: Rating the AL Central general managers
By Bill Felber
2019 MLB Season: The AL Central’s best GM
Dayton Moore, Kansas City Royals
With a young and hopefully developing team, Moore made the logical decision to pursue development through the farm system. That strategy flopped, saddling the Royals with their second successive 100-loss season.
Moore’s plan for the season leaned heavily on 15 first-year prospects called to the big leagues at one point or another during the year. Seven were pitchers, including Glenn Sparkman, who made 23 starts and worked 136 innings.
That investment may someday pay off. But for the 2019 MLB season, those seven pitchers contributed -4.2 WAA to the cause. Among the 15 rookies overall, the best short-term score was reliever Jake Newberry’s +0.3 in 31 innings of work; their cumulative impact was -7.9 games.
In other aspects of team-building, Moore was understandably more conservative. He signed or re-signed only nine free agents to a net impact of -1.4 WAA. Easily the most productive was the extension given to Whit Merrifield, who returned 1.7 WAA on that extension.
Moore slow-walked the trade market, obtaining only five second-line figures in deals with other teams. They netted a cumulative -0.3 WAA.
As for players exiting the organization, that barely happened. The Royals lost not a single player to free agency who subsequently played for another big-league team, and they traded away or sold just five. The most prominent were pitchers Homer Bailey and Jake Diekman (to Oakland) and catcher Martin Maldonado, traded to Chicago for Mike Montgomery in July. The net impact of those five departures was a flat 0.0.
It will be interesting to see whether Moore’s job security is influenced by the team’s pending sale. Moore has an extensive track record highlighted by the 2015 World Series championship. But he also has back-to-back horrible seasons, and there is a natural tendency on the part of any new ownership group to want to install its own people.
Short-term acquisitions: -0.3
Short-term trade losses: 0.0
Short-term free agent signings: -1.4
Short-term free agent losses: 0.0
Short-term rookie production: -7.9
Short-term total: -9.6