Quote:
Originally Posted by duncan_idaho
This is extreme hyperbole.
Good picks:
Mike Moustakas
Eric Hosmer
Sean Manaea
Brandon Finnegan
Mike Montgomery
Average pick:
Aaron Crow
Bad Picks:
Chris Colon
Bubba Starling
Unlucky pick:
Kyle Zimmer
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I do feel like you're engaging in some grade inflation here. If guys like Finnegan, Montgomery and Manea are considered 'good' picks in order to bolster your resume, then your definition of 'good' is building towards a .500 squad.
Those are first round picks with serious bonus outlays required who will, at their best, be exceedingly mediocre players. If those guys are in the top 1/3 of your roster, you'll struggle to win 85 games unless there's serious star power ahead of them. Which gets back to where I think Dane is coming from - Moore's relatively iffy eye for star power.
So if you are building around guys like that, you need a whole hell of a lot more of them than what Moore's accomplished. And if you call them what I would call them - average picks - you end up with an average to slightly below average drafting record for Moore.
Like I said, I don't think he's a particularly astute baseball man. The health over the overall system speaks for itself; the Royals may have the worst 5 year projection in baseball right now. The Orioles is probably slightly worse, but it's a close call. Their system is barren and their best talent at the big league level is extremely 'meh'. Even if Cuthbert takes a step forward, Merrifield maintains, Solar becomes a 25-30 HR player and Mondesi breaks out, they still lack pitching something awful and with all that development have, at best, broken even on the losses of Cain/Moustakas/Hosmer.
Would you be surprised to see them average 85-90 losses over the next 5 seasons? I wouldn't - and that's due in MASSIVE part to the fact that the farm simply hasn't developed the organizational depth needed to handle this kind of exodus. His first round picks have been fair to middling but his picks afterwards have provided well below that.
As a risk-taker and horse-trader, he's done a nice job. And as a salesman it's impossible to overstate the impact he's had on the franchise. But asking if he's the right man for a bottom-up rebuild is a fair question. Personally, I think he'll fail, but I do think he's earned the right to try.