Three Cheers for Clear Thinking

NPH is relieved at the sanity that is surfacing now that the dust has started to settled from our home town team's trade over the weekend, in which we acquired the guy there on the left and got rid of a taco-snarfing pitcher.

For example, Clark Fosler at the Royals Authority blog says this:

My take, is simply that this was another shot across the bow of the entire organization. Just a year ago, former GM Allard Baird pretty much labeled relievers Mike MacDougal, Burgos and Sisco as untouchable and building block for the future. Today, all three are gone. The message: potential and ‘plus projections’ are great, but you better be able to perform and you better have a mentality focused squarely on winning. Oh, and by the way, you are just relievers.

And a reader calling him/herself "Howserfan" at Royals Review points out that

This move shows the importance GMDM [General Manager Dayton Moore] places on two things difficult to measure and therefore often dismissed even by attentive baseball fans.

Namely, defense and attitude.

GMDM's first principle is that you have to get 27 outs a game to win. You can win [or lose] with one run, or three, or ten but you must get 27 outs to win a regulation game.

His second principle seems to be that attitude & character matter. Without it, players are unlikely to help build a winner long-term.

Just about all of the moves so far have been about getting more outs or getting players with better charcter/work habits.

Imagine, a leader in an organization making decisions based on work habits and attitude. When you're a small-market operation, you simply can't afford the weighing down effect of star players' bad attitudes; you have to try to be the little engine that could. And for that to happen, everybody's got to be "all aboard."

Ooh, NPH apologizes for that.

Read more ...

Oh The Things We Know

On Saturday, NPH's hometown baseball team traded a big lefty relief pitcher with lots of upside for a backup first baseman. Initial reporting of the trade was befuddled, loudly wondering what Royals GM Dayton Moore could be thinking. The player they got, it was pointed out, could be got anywhere in the minor leagues in any year, while the player they gave only comes along once in a great while, even if his performance last year was a marked regression from the year before. One writer deemed the move "less than impressive" and concluded that Moore was a "Bad GM" who got caught on a "bad day."

Such is still the majority opinion. And yesterday the GM of the team with whom Moore made the deal pooh-pooh's his new pitcher's poor last season and said,"There's a mechanical issue or two that hopefully by now, by going down to winter ball, he's gotten himself straightened out." Got that? It's a mechanical issue.

Only, the mechanics seem to have more to do with tacos than they do fastballs or sliders. It seems that Mr. Upside was cut by his winter ball team for eating tacos on the stadium concourse during the first inning of a game. Here's the text of an email that one baseball writer received a couple of weeks ago"

"Check this out: [the player Moore traded], the 6'9" kid from Eastern Washington who pitches for [NPH's home team], was just cut by Mazatlan. He was pitching well enough, however the team director saw [him]munching on a couple of tacos in the stadium concourse...during the first inning of a game. Apparently, heshowed up in the dugout sometime in the second, but his fate was sealed."

NPH always assumes, when the ink starts to fly about a trade, that the GM knows more than the writers do. And more than simply un-worried about Moore's latest move, we're positively thrilled by it. It may have added five ticks to the win column by itself.

Read more ...

Dayton Moore Update

From the Royals blog on the Most Valuable Network:

But what we are seeing here is more evidence Dayton Moore is following the Atlanta Braves model. The Royals are in dire need of starting pitching. If they’re actually thinking about adding Miguel Batista for three years, that’s insane. So, they decide to deal a reliever who might never realize his potential because he was rushed to the major leagues, for a decent (and cheap) starting pitching prospect.

This in response to the news that Moore has inked a trade with Mets GM Omar Minaya to send reliever Ambioroix Burgos to New York in exchange for starter Brian Bannister.

Not exactly a headline-ticker trade, but evidence of what Moore is all about: get more starting pitchers. As a fan, this is fun to watch.

Other rumors have the Royals in the running for Miguel Bautista and Gil Meche. Again, innings-eaters, guys who will beef up the starting rotation.

NPH is enjoying this.

Read more ...

Dayton Moore

NPH loves baseball, and a few short years in the Heartland has made him a devoted fan of the Kansas City Royals. NPH knows somebody who knows somebody, so he gets to go to games several times per season (although "knowing somebody" is certainly not a requirement for getting to see the Royals; they sell out exactly four times a season: opening day and the three games the Cardinals are in town). NPH reads about the Royals a lot, goes to games whenever he can, and listens to games on the radio faithfully.

So NPH devoured this article in the KC Star this morning by Bob Dutton. It's all about the decisions facing the new Royals General Manager, Dayton Moore, who was hired mid-season after Allard Baird was fired. Essentially, Moore faces the challenge of leading the transformation of an organization for consistent future success, all with scant financial resources(relative to baseball econmics, that is).

And so what's most important to Moore in that process? That's easy. Here's a money quote from the article:

"The most important exercise that we do every day,” Moore said, “is scouting and signing future talent in the international market and through the draft.”

In other words, you have to bring in new talent. And that talent has to be inculcated, coached, beat over the head with a consistent philosophy and style of play. To do this, the Royals have even created a new minor league team, a rookie squad, just so that they can bring in more young players.

There are lessons here for life, for sure. Give NPH some time to tease them out.

Read more ...