[duncan_idaho]

My leash on Moore is near its end. I don't know that it's quite all the way there, but it's damn close.

I've been saying for a while... this offseason is the barometer. The moves Moore makes in this position ultimately decide his fate, in my mind. KC had better be +.500 and in the thick of for him to make it to next year, IMO. And it had better make the playoffs the following year.

I think Moore's trade history takes an unwarranted beating, and he has done well when trading an actual, valuable piece. When the worst you can point to is a reliever for Mike Jacobs or David DeJesus for Mazzero and Marks, meh.

And hindsight makes a lot of contracts look foolish.

Bringing back Hochevar last year, for example. His second half of 2011 was encouraging and carried a lot of nice indicators that he had made REAL changes to his approach as a pitcher. In hindsight, it was fool's gold. But at the time, offering him arb was the best move.

Dayton's love of Jeff Francoeur is frustrating, but the two year deal he was signed to did not look AWFUL at the time. The Royals had a big hole in RF, and Myers was coming off of a season that made him look like a potential bust. The original one-year deal was a brilliant flyer. The second deal was below market value, and even if Francoeur regressed to usual level, he still would be a decent value at that price (.260/20/70/10 on the open market for $6.5 million). Of course, he was worse than he'd ever been before.

Yes, money could have been saved at 2B, UTIL, backup C, last year. But you have to pay the reserves SOMETHING (And you're talking about $4 million vs. $3 million, most likely).

What I wouldn't argue with at all, though, is that Moore is entirely too loyal and trusting of "the scout's view." That's why they stuck with Davies so long, why Hochevar is still around, etc. All GMs make mistakes. Dayton Moore certainly has. It's how they respond and recover from mistakes that makes the difference and separates the wheat from the chaff.