Apologies to the legions of PBR fans who've been waiting patiently for more cutting edge offseason analysis. However, we've literally been speechless since Christmas came early and Dayton put a big lump of Yuniesky Betancourt under our tree. Spring training is right around the corner and the Royals are preparing to head off for the sunshine of Arizona hoping to defend their Cactus League title with a group of young homegrown talent (and Yuni, Frenchy and Cheny too). So what has Moore done this offseason in preparation for the most promising season in recent memory?
Step 1: Make the safe but smart trade for possible rotation help. The Melky for Sanchez flip was classic Dayton. He rebuilt Melky's career, looked smart in doing so, and pounced on the opportunity to turn him into a big upside starting pitcher. This trade needs little review; it had to be done. You had to get rid of Cain or Cabrera this offseason or face the same consequence of letting one of the pieces of the Grienke deal rot away in AAA. This was a good use of Cabrera and now we get to find out what, if anything, we've got in Lorenzo Cain. We just have to keep our fingers crossed and hope Sanchez has another good season left in his left arm.
Step 2: Pretend you are willing to trade your young prospects for big name starting pitchers. Latos, Gonzalez and Cahill went for varying degrees of prospect hauls, and the Royals were rumored to be "interested" in all of them. However, Dayton and/or the Royals just aren't there yet. The Melky/Sanchez trade allowed Dayton to stand his ground and horde his prospects for a rainy day. I wanted to see the big trade, but maybe they're still a year away, who knows? The bottom line is that this surprised NO ONE!
Step 3: Take the most obvious route possible and re-sign BRUCE CHEN. It's hard for me to get worked up about this since I've been wrong on Chen for two consecutive years, and you have to agree with the consensus that he has the "good clubhouse guy" thing down. But at the very least this was unnecessary. Again, it's the safe play and there is very little chance of it backfiring, but Tim Tebow is more likely to be starting game two of a playoff series for the Royals than B Chen. On the flip side if he goes 10-10 and eats 200 innings this year, it's another win for Dayton.
Step 4: Take a flyer on a once great closer beaten down by arm injuries. On the face of it, signing Jonathan Broxton is just plain stupid. The Royals have plenty of bullpen arms. However, deep down it's really the same as signing Jeff Francouer or Melky Cabrera last year; if it works great, if not nobody is hurt.
Step 5: Take away from on the field issues by forcing out your TV announcer; a beloved franchise figure and community leader. Oh yeah, this was Fox Sports...of course Dayton had no part in it. Who knows what to believe in this story? Frank was most definitely not Vin Scully, but I might be listening to the radio broadcasts a lot more this season.
Step 6: Yuni Redux! Dayton proves to everyone that he is completely oblivious. He voluntarily shows the league that he is willing to be the butt of all jokes by getting his main man Yuni back on the squad. Here's how it happened: Grienke wants out, the Brewers want Grienke, Dayton forces them to take Yuni as part of the trade and offers $1 mil as a good faith gesture. Royals fans rejoice and Dayton looks smart. Now, fast forward to this offseason, the Royals need a utility infielder and here's why: Mike Aviles was slightly disgruntled last season and got traded to Boston for Yamico Navarro (a younger Aviles), BUT it turns out that Navarro doesn't mesh well with Frenchy and Dayton's good-guy clubhouse. Dayton ships him off for cash, then the Royals realize that Chris Getz is not a good fit for the back-up 3B/SS job. Next, they are rumored for weeks to be in on every has-been back-up infielder on the market. Enfin, Dayton shocks the world by signing the only one who no one expected and who is not actually a back-up infielder. Yes, the same one who one year ago Dayton had paid $1 mil for him NOT to be on his team. This is the logic of Dayton Moore. By completely mishandling Mile Aviles (the perfect back-up infielder) he winds up paying $2 mil (twice as much) for an inferior, historically less productive, infamously inept, and completely inexplicable option. I can't wait to write more about it, it's Royals blogging gold!
Step 7: Make a perfectly good signing of a lefty specialist. Tim Collins is not that guy. Jose Mijares is. He costs less than $1 mil. Ned Yost will make lots of trips to the mound and need Tommy John surgery on his left arm from calling for Mijares. He will have 81 appearances and pitch 30 innings. This is the second best offseason move, but there wasn't a lot of competition.
Step 8: Breaking news as Dayton's bargain shopping continues with the signing of Kevin Kouzmanoff. If he's only worth a minor league deal, how is Yuni worth $2mil???????????????????????????????????
Step 9: Sign Roy Oswalt, trade Hochevar.
Step 10: Wait for Prince Fielder's price to drop. Sign him, trade Hosmer and Wil Myers to Seattle for Felix Hernadez and win the AL Central for the next 5 years. Being a GM is so simple a blogger could do it.
Okay so the PBR filled in those last two Steps, but if Dayton does anything we can be sure that it is either going to be completely predictable or completely nonsensical. You know Kevin Kouzmanoff is not going to be the last of Dayton Moore this offseason. Will he resign Jose Guillen to platoon with Alex Gordon or will he resign Jason Kendall to be the be third string catcher? There is surely one more surprise left in Dayton before he heads off to Surprise, AZ.
