So where do we go now?
Hi! Welcome to The Analytics Say… I started this Substack for topics that I think are interesting but are too long for Twitter. That means there will not necessarily be a weekly, daily, or even monthly post. New entries will be ad hoc, free gratis, etc…
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So what will this Substack be about? If you follow me on Twitter it’ll just be more of the same: sports, analytics, data, and bad jokes. This is just a way for me to more easily expand on thoughts without a character restriction (though maybe a character restriction is best…) It will be Royals. It will be Chiefs. It will be macro baseball and football things. There will be data. There will be pictures and graphs and tables too. I have no editor or anyone to look over my work before I hit submit, so blame God for her making me who I am and with all my flaws.
Dayton Moore: “Boss wants to see you in his office”
When I first signed up for Substack, I didn’t haven’t anything I wanted to right about yet. I had an idea or two in my head but was in no rush and wasn’t even sure if I wanted to spend time expanding my thoughts on it.
And then an ominous presser from John Sherman was announced out of nowhere. And then 2PM in Kansas City inched closer. And then Dayton Moore was fired.
Fired might be too strong a word here. From Sherman’s presser, it sounded more like a mutual parting. Somewhere softer than a firing, but heavier than quitting. Much closer to “you can either quit or we can fire you, the choice is yours.” A mutual parting of ways.
We can argue into oblivion on if this is a year or two late. It’s been clear (in this author’s shitty opinion) that the writing should have been on the wall for the owner of the Royals for awhile now. The decision was certainly slowed by the transition in ownership after the passing of David Glass. The org hasn’t drafted particularly well for most of the past 10 years give or take. They haven’t really been competitive since let’s just say 2017 (and even then everyone knew 2018 would be brutal). So now we get the change that was overdue and one I think many (most?) Royals fans will agree with.
Moore’s legacy
I don’t want to dive too deep into this one. I think I could write 2,000 words on this but don’t have the time or even the mental space in the hollowed out corners of my Coke Zero riddled brain to fill even if I wanted to.
I’m sure over the next days/weeks/months someone will write fluff pieces on Moore and the World Series titles. Pieces that softly gloss over the Royals 1,188-1,450 or 1,126-1,350 record depending upon which endpoint you want to use (2006 or 2007, respectively).
Here is the Royals ELO rating over Dayton Moore’s time as the de facto leader of the Royals org per FiveThirtyEight (let’s just start at 2007):
In 2007, he took over arguably the worst team in the league. By 2016, the Royals were the best team in the league (and not just by looking at winning the World Series either). By mid-year 2018, they were the worst team in the league again and haven’t never climbed back to even average since.
There are teams that have never won a World Series and there is a team who has never even been to it (Seattle) let alone appearing twice and winning once like the Royals did. It’s hard to just gloss over that part in the overall tenure of Moore, who will leave office having only had three winning seasons in his 16 or 17 season tenure.
The legacy of Dayton Moore isn’t as simple as “Flags Fly Forever BRO”. There is nuance here. Moore will leave office running a franchise with the 4th fewest wins since he took over, and those teams (Miami, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh) have all turned over their leadership role during that span before Moore was fired. The Marlins changed GMs four times since 2007. The Orioles three times. The Pirates twice.
*Moore hasn’t been GM since last year technically but he maintains the leader role
You can appreciate the highs of 2014 and 2015 (and also the excitement of 2013) while also being disappointed in everything that came before (like trying to kick start the franchise shortly after taking over) and after (being too slow to trade players and thus lengthen the rebuild that is still going on).
And it’s also more nuanced than just giving him all the blame for everything bad and all the credit for everything good. I’m going to steal a table from an old post of mine at Royals Review
This is the World Series winning roster from 2015 and how those players were acquired.
Deric Ladnier was the incumbent scouting director when Moore took over and was ultimately fired shortly later in September of 2008. Seven players on the roster were selected when Ladnier was the scouting director (across different GM spans). Two of the best players on that roster (Cain and Davis) were proceeds in trade from players selected with Ladnier as the scouting director. Since his firing in 2008, it’s been a bit more tough sledding on the draft under the guidance of JJ Picollo (Moore’s replacement) and Lonnie Goldberg.
Okay, I said I wasn’t going to write 2,000 words on this. I’m not sure how many I am at so far (766 actually, not including this parenthesis) but let me wrap it up by saying this:
Moore’s legacy is complicated. He took over a terrible franchise from an objectively bad general manager but inherited some decent assets and a seemingly decent scouting director. He fired that scouting director and also hasn’t drafted particularly well since. However it is hard to just stumble into a World Series let alone back-to-back ones. But also them immediately falling off right after winning it despite the roster being mostly the same shows that a little bit of overperformance happened. Yet still, a ship needs a captain and Moore as captain has done something few other GMs have ever done outside of a few franchises in history and even fewer since baseball had more than twelve teams total. And yet, that bright light doesn’t shine over the past half decade since. Moore hired Trey Hillman and gave Gil Meche “Meche Money”. He maneuvered the trade to land franchise legends Lorenzo Cain and Wade Davis. He gave up franchise record money and a first round pick for Ian Kennedy. He opened Urban Youth Academy. He was too late to trade aging vets. He gave his minor leaguers raises and pushed for livable living conditions.
While ultimately I think Moore did more wrong than right, it isn’t all black and white (did not mean to rhyme here).
An old body in a new suit
Just going to point out a big coincidence here in the leader of literally the royals moving on and the leader of literally the Royals moving on in the span of a week (though one of these people is fortunately still living).
So now we move on to JJ Picollo, who as of Sherman’s presser is acting head of the organization. It still seems a bit TBD if that will stand or if it is temporary but it seems like he will get some time in the big boss’s chair.
It’s really hard to untangle Picollo from Moore.
Picollo played at George Mason when Moore was an assistant coach. When Moore joined the Braves, he urged Picollo to join as well and become a scout. When Moore left Atlanta, Picollo followed.
Now for the first time in pretty much his adult life (at least professionally), Picollo will not be following Moore.
It’s just not simply easy to separate the things Picollo has done with the things Moore has done. We don’t even have many examples of things we can say Picollo has done!
In one of the all too many Twitter discussions (and arguments) I get in far too often from having permanently online brain, I asked this very point in response to a tweet from overall good dude Alex Duvall (he’s a teacher and I’m asking the state of Missouri to pay them more). Then in the thread, KC Star journalist (*ding ding ding* another underpaid profession) Jesse Newell added a good point.
There is something we can reasonably attribute to Picollo.
I will say though that often time we are evidence of the good and don’t ever heard about the bad. Not that Picollo is filled with more bad than good, but it’s not as if any franchise is jumping out to give interviews on things they made a mistake with.
In February of 2022 we heard about all the progress the Royals org has made in pitching development. Then last week from the same publication, we basically heard “yeah it stinks.” Many of the virtues extolled in the former article were knocked down a bit in the former. The Royals fired Terry Bradshaw with Picollo as the GM. The Royals have yet to fire Cal Eldred with Picollo as the GM. It’s hard to point to the firing of one as credit and the not firing of the other as blame.
It’s almost certainly impossible to think Picollo, who has spent the past 30 years working with/under Moore, can just un-remember everything he was taught to view through the lens of Moore. Warren Buffet to this day still talks about lessons Ben Graham taught him in the 40s and 50s!
Picollo is going to have to prove that he can step out of Dayton Moore’s reality distortion field (Moore isn’t Steve Jobs per se but he’s arguably the most influential Royals staffer in history). He’s going to have to draft better than the team has done, which includes his own time as scouting director. He’s going to have to do things (drastically) different than how the org he’s been a member of for the past 15 years has done.
That’s a task man.
Going into your work tomorrow and say “I’m going to unwind everything we’ve done previously and start from nearly scratch and also I have to do well in the next 3-4 years or I am fired.” A new GM/PoBO would be given the luxury and space to tear down the walls and rebuild the entire house. Picollo likely won’t have quite that construction budget given that he’s a holdover of a now fired general manager that was hired under the prior owner.
Everyone else
The front office skies are still clouded with chemtrails of Dayton Moore’s captaincy. George Mason alumni still populate the break room and offices at One Royal Way and obviously everyone as of right now was hired with Moore as the leader, be it as GM or president of baseball ops.
Some of the fruit on the tree appears to be low-hanging: Mike Matheny and Cal Eldred. Both were due to receive their virtual pink slips in their email inboxes soon anyways, so this only probably just hits send a little earlier (Matheny did have him 2023 option picked up before the season fwiw).
I think there is a good argument that the roots need to be torn from the ground here. It’s more than Matheny and Eldred. You can’t have an organization lose 500 games in just over a half decade and it all be on the shoulders of one single person. Maybe it isn’t systemic. Maybe the apple isn’t rotten all the way to the core. It’s possible there are good team leaders in the upper front office, they just didn’t have their voices listened to strong enough with Moore as their boss. Maybe.
But again, the leadership team hands are covered in the ink of Dayton Moore’s tenure. The list of titles of current leaders that have been with Moore for awhile:
Sr. Vice President/Assistant GM
Vice President - Player Personnel
Vice President - Assistant General Manager/Research & Development
Vice President - Major League Scouting/Assistant GM
Vice President - Baseball Administration/Assistant GM
Special Assistant to the GM
Special Assistant to the GM/Player Development
Sr. Advisor to the General Manager/Scouting & Player Development
Sr. Advisor to the GM
Sr. Director, Performance Science
Sr. Director - Pitching
Sr. Director - Behavioral Sciences
Lead Developer - Baseball Systems
Director-Hitting Performance/Player Development
Director - Baseball Operations/Scouting and Player Development
Director - Scouting
Sr. Developer - Baseball Systems
This is not to say all these people should get the axe. Far from it. Again, obviously everyone in the org currently was hired under Moore’s leadership just by virtue of how long Picollo has been the head of the franchise (less than 24 hours). Instead, this is just to show that the philosophical legacy and influence Moore will have had on the Royals leadership after his parting is deep. It will likely remain as such for the foreseeable future. Picollo has worked with all these people for years, many for 20+ years. It’s hard for these leaders to have stuck around for as long as they have while disagreeing with Moore and his chief of staff Picollo.
The point here is that Picollo is still steering for the time being Moore’s ship. Simply replacing the captain doesn’t fix the ship. Many of the people helping Picollo steer the ship helped Moore steer it when he was captain (no more nautical analogies).
There needs to be tangible evidence in the next few months and years that this isn’t just a continuation of the more recently failing tenure of a fired leader.
So now what?
Picollo should obviously be familiar with the staff that are now all under him. That will help make the review process easier and that is what Picollo has to do. He needs to examine every inch of the organizational structure and processes and find any gaps or processes he dislikes. This is a bit where I think it would be better to have a fresh set of eyes (aka a new PoBO) because Picollo probably thinks for the most part the processes are fine! I wouldn’t expect wholesale changes like you would see with a new head of an org.
And this is where for me it is hard to see a lot of change. If you assume Picollo isn’t going to clean house (which I think is reasonable), then what do you fix? Danny Ontiveros just got promoted to scouting director, so they won’t replace him. Picollo is right now in the GM title role, so maybe he brings in a proper GM? I think he should. Corporate structures should never have the CEO also be the chairman of the board. It’s the same for baseball teams: the GM and PoBO should be two separate roles and people.
I’d like to see Picollo, assuming he is acting in the PoBO role (ignore his title, titles are just manmade jumblings of powerful sounding words), bring in a proper general manager from a forward thinking org. quick reminder that teams cannot poach current GMs to be their GM, it must be a promotion so they’d have to snag someone below GM.
There have been several names being thrown around to fill the now vacant San Francisco Giants GM role (Scott Harris went to Detroit) and we can also look at those who were in the running for the role Harris took with the Tigers.
Billy Owens - Oakland A’s
Amiel Sawdaye - Arizona Diamondbacks
Jeremy Shelley - SF Giants
Dana Brown - Atlanta Braves
Pete Putila - Houston Astros
Jeff Kingston - LA Dodgers
Carlos Rodriguez - TB Rays
Picollo should just simply ask the Giants - an incredibly smart organization - who they are interviewing and hire one of them. The Royals don’t need to throw a curveball here. They need a 98 MPH fastball down the middle. The current roster, org depth, and likely available annual payroll budget doesn’t have the time or assets to mess around with a failure.
I think Picollo needs to then let the new GM bring in his/her own people to run the groups under them. That means parting ways with a lot of people Picollo has worked with for a decade or more, but if Picollo is serious about this, that is what needs to be done. The Royals being - and let’s call it what it is - a loser franchise right now wasn’t just because of one man. Picollo needs to figure out who is on board with his changes with every breath they take or they can start paying for tickets to attend Royals games.
As for the roster, no need to re-live 2007. No giant splashy signing is needed this offseason to try to make the team competitive in 2023. They are probably going to stink unless the young guys develop and take some steps forward. That is fine! You don’t want to try to force open a window if you the roster isn’t set up to sustain it.
There isn’t a lot of meat on the bone for trade assets outside a few guys: Michael A Taylor, Brad Keller, Luke Weaver, Amir Garrett, and Adalberto Mondesi are the only players on the roster who are free agents after 2023. Not sure you can get much for any of those guys, but if there is a fish willing to bite, reel them in.
The Royals the past year or two have finally had exactly what they need: playing time. The roster and projected lineup is filled with young players and ample space to play them.
Ryan O’Hearn needs to be non-tendered. The Royals have an easy out because he’s not under contract once the season ends. Hunter Dozier needs to be released as well, and Picollo can use the cover of his promotion to hide behind the $16.75M (*WOOF*) still owed to him.
I’d also like to see something done with Salvador Perez but…I don’t know what? If you cut Dozier/O’Hearn then you have to worry about finding playing time for guys like Melendez/Pratto/Pasquantino who all should probably be getting time at DH. Melendez is probably not a catcher as it stands, so that makes it easier to keep Perez. And as much as we all love Sal, he’s owed $62M going forward on a team that I would be surprised if they compete for a title during the payment window. Yes, I know the Royals org thinks they are closer to a .500 team (that’s a whole ‘nother post) but Perez is 33 years old and has a lot of miles as a catcher on him True, they’ve not pushed him as hard behind the plate more recently but it’s hard to see him not declining in some capacity over the next three seasons. I’d probably look to trade him (they traded Whit Merrifield so it’s not impossible) and I think that would be a major flag that Picollo is doing things differently than Moore if they do.
That’s all I have for now. If you enjoyed this, please subscribe below (it’s free).
I don't know what good moving on from Sal would do...keep him around to mentor the kids and retire a forever Royal, imo...