A Silver Lining With A Cloud…

Sorry, Meant to publish this earlier in the week and scheduled it to do so automatically, or so i thought, as I was preoccupied, but it didn’t post. Anyway, here it is.

 

Let’s do a little comparison of two player’s stats from last year.

Name Batting Average Home Runs On Base Percentage Slugging Percentage
Player A .218 8 .274 .338
Player B .196 22 .287 .394

 

Player A is Kendrys Morales, who recently signed a contract with the Royals for 2 years, 17 million dollars. Player B is Mark Reynolds, who signed with the Cardinals for one year at 2 million dollars.

You’d think that a guy who’s making 8.5 million per year would be significantly better than a guy making 2 million a year, but other than batting average, Reynolds beats Morales stat-wise. Reynolds did have more at-bats, but only 32, with 433 compared to Morales 401.

Now admittedly, Reynolds was signed by the Cardinals to be more of a bench bat, while Morales was signed to supposedly replace the Royals DH, Billy Butler, who left for KC.

Still, given his production last year, I’ll bet that the Royals could’ve gotten Morales for a little less, or probably found better options at that price.

You know how they say that clouds have silver linings? In this case, I think silver linings have clouds.

The silver lining was KC’s playoff run, which almost netted them a World Series. The cloud is the fact that Dayton Moore is now even more firmly entrenched as the Royals GM.

Last season was the only year during Moore’s 7 and ½ year run that the Royals have made the playoffs, and they made it as a wild card with 89 wins. But, as mentioned, they made it all the way to the WS. To a game seven no less, which is far as you can get without winning.

He hasn’t followed that run with a very good off-season however. He let Butler go. (Admittedly Butler himself was a bit overpriced at three years and 30 million dollars) and it sounds like they have no chance at re-signing James Shields either, and haven’t found a replacement for him yet.

If the Royals miss the playoffs next year, as many think they might, you have to wonder what Dayton Moore can do. The Shields trade, after all, was his big gamble. While it worked to some degree, helping them make their first playoff appearance in many years, Shields is gone and Wil Myers, the key player traded for Shields, if healthy, could easily rebound and be a dangerous bat for the Rays.

Maybe the reason he signed Morales at such a high price given his recent performance is Moore felt he had to do *something*. Who knows, well Moore, of course, but that’s it, as everyone else is scratching their heads. It likely won’t cost Moore his job though, not after last year.

As always, thanks for reading.

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