[duncan_idaho]

Re: the Royals' system... Dayton Moore's success as a talent recruiter and developer depends on Hosmer and Moustakas doing more than show flashes. Like Alex Gordon in his early days, they have show enough to understand the hype but have struggled adjusting.

Billy Butler and Alex Gordon are well above-average major league players developed internally. Butler has succeeded basically from Day 1 (though his power has really only started to show up in HR over the past season and a half).

Gordon actually had a very nice sophomore campaign (.351/.432) before falling off the cliff for a few years and coming back on pace and living up to expectations.

He's on pace for a .325/25 HR/110 RBI/.350 OBP/.520 SLG year. Finally hitting to expectations.

I'd also point to Sal Perez, who has finally reached a full season's worth of career at-bats in the bigs and has hit .300+ while slugging in the .450 range.

But all that falls apart if one of Hosmer/Moustakas doesn't become a legitimate above-average player and the other at least average.

Using Myers/Montgomery/Odorizzi to add Shields and Davis is not a bad move, IMO. That's how a deep farm system SHOULD be leveraged.

As for the pitching prospects... John Lamb's Tommy John surgery was extremely bad luck. That was the best guy out of that group, IMO. And he looks like he might be the 1/10 guys that never comes all the way back.

They got some use out of Montgomery after he started to bust, and full value for Odorizzi.

That leaves Chris Dwyer (who actually is healthy and pitching pretty well at Omaha) and Danny Duffy (who looked very promising before TJ last year). I think they'll get good value out of Duffy as a solid No. 3 starter in the majors, and Dwyer can be a valuable trade piece, IMO.

My point:
The book still is open on the top-ranked farm system of a few years ago. It depends on Hosmer/Moustakas figuring it out and Danny Duffy coming back strong.

But yeah, some legitimate questions about the Royals minor league approach under Moore. And some questions that will stick about WHY he deviated from his draft strategy in 2010 to take Christian Colon instead of a higher upside college pitcher or high-upside high school guy.