Dayton's All Throw Away Team

I'm by no means advocating bringing any of the following players back, and I realize that one month from now this could look really ridiculous, but I've been perusing the box scores of other teams and noticed some familiar names. In honor of the Royals facing Philip Humber tomorrow and the All Star game coming to town I've assembled a pretty good team with the players Dayton Moore has basically thrown away. Here is the batting order and starting line-up for Dayton's All  Throw Away Team:

1. RF David DeJesus: I know, I know, we still have 5 years of Vin Mazzaro going for us. And DJ wasn't under contract for this season, but still he's hitting .266/.375/.760, not exactly Ted Williams, but I'd take that at lead-off over Frenchy's .243/.298/.620 line batting fifth. And shouldn't DeJesus really be the Royals veteran leader? I mean, he's actually a veteran. And he's actually a Royal not a Brave (Dayton does seem to get the two confused). Look, not holding onto DJ and signing him to an extension isn't exactly a searing indictment against Moore, but it's the little things that add up.

2. SS Mike Aviles: For some reason I really liked Mike. I get it, he made some vague comments against management and Dayton said it was time to go. Maybe that's being a no-nonsense GM, but maybe good GMs just ignore harmless comments like this and move on with life. Mike is the type of guy whose numbers could go off a  cliff at any point in time, but the fact is right now his numbers are as good as our starting SS.

3. LF Melky Cabrera: As soon as Jonathan Sanchez comes off the DL and stops walking people, I'm sure this one will swing right back in Dayton's favor. His OPS is currently 200 points higher than Frenchy's, and he's not guaranteed $7.5 mil next season, and he currently stands to net the Giants a first round draft pick when he's let go in the offseason. Okay you decide: a better hitter this season, $7.5 mil toward a starting pitcher next season, Wil Meyers starting in RF on opening day and a possible supplemental 1st round pick in 2012 OR a really nice guy to have in the clubhouse?

4. DH Wilson Betemit: This was actually a good move initially by Dayton to get him, but then the Royals really just didn't know what to do with Betemit. Eventually his average dropped a bit and Moose was ready for the bigs so he just sat there spoiling until Detroit came along with a pair of young no-name prospects. Again not the most damaging check mark against Moore, but Wilson ended up being a severely undervalued asset. He's slugging almost .500 so far this season, so he bats clean up. Oh yeah, the Orioles are paying half as much for him as we're paying for Yuni and we're still looking for a right handed bat off the bench.  

5. 1B Kila Ka'aihue: We all know this guy never got a shot in KC and I'll bet everyone is really pulling for him to do well in Oakland. Not that I'd trade him back for Hosmer, but Hosmer would kill for his .292/.354/.785 line right about now.  

6. C John Buck: Memories! Originally part of that blockbuster-turned-dud Beltran trade. Yeah, that never worked out, but it also seemed like Dayton hated this guy from the very beginning (not that I was his #1 fan). First he went out and got renta-catcher Miggy Olivo to platoon with him and then he just flat-out releases Buck following the 2009 season. Naturally he went on to Toronto to hit 20 HRs and make the F-ing All Star team! How's that for a non tendered player coming back to bite you in the ass. Oh yeah, don't forget that Dayton did this so that he could sign old man Kendall to "develop" the young pitchers. Which you'll recall turned out well. And just as a little cherry on top, Toronto knew the season was pretty fluky and let him sign with Florida, but that got them a supplemental 1st round pick in the 2011 draft. I wonder why Toronto gets credit for being such a well run organization? He's been pretty bad in Florida, but nothing compared to how bad Kendall was with the Royals.

7. 3B Alberto Callaspo: Yes, I'd rather have Moose. No question. But the fact is Callaspo turned into a really solid player at 3B and Sean O'Sullivan turned into absolutely nothing.

8. 2B Yamaico Navarro: Dayton will most likely be back with the Braves and I'll be blogging about the Houston Astros before we know if the players he squeezed out of Pittsburgh are worth anything. What we do know is that Dayton got rid of Aviles for Yamaico because he thought Aviles had a bad attitude, but it turned out Yamico made Aviles look like Chris Getz when it comes to team unity. Also, we had to give $2 mil to Yuni to do the job Navarro was supposed handle. Not exactly great resource management by our GM.    

9. CF Willie Bloomquist: Okay this is a stretch, but I really needed a center fielder. Technically it qualifies since he was traded to Cincy for the classic late season "player to be named and cash." I'll admit that I was hard on poor Willie, but it was mainly because he was our starting CF and #2 hitter for the bulk of a season, which was not exactly his fault. However, he did manage to start for a playoff team last season so we'll give him the final spot on the All Dayton Throw Away roster.

SP Phil Humber: Who else? He threw a perfect game this year. Enough said. You know the story, left off the roster a year ago and went through a series of waiver claims to wind up reborn with the Chi Sox. Nobody can really blame Moore for the move, but the facts are still there. He has been pretty awful coming off the perfect game, but Jonathan Sanchez's 2010 season is the only season from the Royals combined staff members which was better than Humber's 2011 season.

After writing this, I've realized that there are two ways to look at the list. First, you could say I just fielded a competitive major league team from players that Dayton Moore cast away. And in return we've received Vin Mazarro, Sean O'Sullivan, Jonathan Sanchez, Jeff Francouer by extension and half of a AA roster. Not good for Moore. However, there is a glass-half-full way to view it in that we no longer need Kila Ka'aihue to be good, we need Hosmer to be great. We no longer need 160 quality innings from Philip Humber, we need 200 dominant innings from Duffy. We no longer need DeJesus to be solid, we need Wil Meyers to be a superstar. This is really the best thing that we can say for Moore right now, at least we're in a position where things can go right. Still we're already looking at next season in mid May, but it is no longer quite as painful as it once was.