Royals’ GM frustrated about MLB’s lack of plan for player development, minor leagues
The combined lack of a Minor League Baseball season and farm systems sitting dormant across Major League Baseball is wearing on Royals general manager Dayton Moore.
While optimism simmers that MLB will approve some form of expanded fall league or instructional league to allow minor-leaguers some semblance of a season before the end of 2020, such talk remains speculative, at best.
At the moment, organizations are limited to working with 60 players, including those on their major-league roster, on a full-time basis.
That leaves hundreds of baseball’s professional players unable to interact with coaches, trainers and sports performance and behavioral science officials beyond video calls.
This week, with the trade deadline approaching, Moore expressed his frustration with the uncertainty surrounding one of the most vital elements of Major League Baseball: the development of minor-leaguers as a sustainable source of big-league talent.
“We haven’t had a chance to evaluate our own players, which is the most important part of the evaluation process, Moore said. “You have to be able to evaluate your own players honestly and very thoroughly to have a pretty good idea of what you need to bring in. That’s as challenging as anything else.”
Many players on the Royals’ current big-league roster are approaching pivotal points in their respective careers.
After this season, the Royals could see veterans Ian Kennedy, Alex Gordon, Trevor Rosenthal and Greg Holland all leave. Star catcher Salvador Perez and left-handed starter Danny Duffy will enter the final year of their contracts in 2021. Jorge Soler can also become a free agent following the 2021 season.
A large group of players will remain under club control but will also become arbitration-eligible for the first time either this winter or after the 2021 season.
That group includes outfielder Hunter Dozier, shortstop Adalberto Mondesi, starting pitcher Brad Keller, starting pitcher Jakob Junis and relief pitcher Scott Barlow.
The Royals must make decisions about their future and which players they can afford to lose because they’ve got ready replacements in their own farm system.
Except having no farm system in action right now makes those decisions and assessments extremely difficult.
“It’s almost impossible, when you can’t evaluate,” Moore said. “Last May, last June, we knew (Josh) Staumont had a good arm. He needed time to develop to what he’s doing now. We knew Tyler Zuber had a good arm, but we needed an opportunity to develop him. We needed an opportunity to send him to winter ball. Those are the evaluations that we’re missing out on.”
The Royals have brought some of their top prospects, including Bobby Witt Jr. and Asa Lacy to their alternate training site in order to continue, in Witt’s case, or start, in Lacy’s, their development toward the majors.
But assistant GM J.J. Picollo cautioned recently that the training going on at the club’s alternate site doesn’t replace playing actual pro baseball games.
“These scrimmages over here are very much that — they’re just scrimmages,” Picollo told The Star earlier this month.
While the Royals have promoted pitchers Brady Singer and Kris Bubic to their major-league rotation, they’ve still got highly touted prospects like Daniel Lynch and Jackson Kowar at their alternate site. Many other Royals prospects are left to simply work out on their own.
“There’s no way to evaluate a player if he’s not playing baseball, if you’re trying to evaluate him as a baseball player,” Moore said. “You simply cannot.
“Hopefully, we’re able to have an extended instructional league program where we can try to recapture some of those evaluations and put players in a better position to compete in 2021. I don’t think we understand the atrophy in our game right now because of the inactivity.
“Baseball is a game that requires a strong commitment. It’s repetition, repetition, repetition, perfect your skills at a level that allows you to compete. It’s just very difficult to try to make those evaluations when we haven’t had a chance to interact with players.”
Moore went so far as to say the team’s lack of access to its young players, particularly those drafted and signed this summer, might have changed his opinion on even having a draft this year.
He said he might’ve had second thoughts about drafting players and investing more than $12 million in signing them had he known the organization wouldn’t be able to bring them all in and work with them for the entire summer or fall.
“Where’s the logic in that?” he said.
Moore said new Royals CEO and chairman John Sherman has been understanding about the holding pattern the Royals’ baseball operations department is in.
“In our conversations, he’s very supportive,” Moore said. “He understands where we are. We’re an organization, like most, that relies heavily on scouting and player development. ...
“We have to develop our own players. We’re not getting the opportunity to do that. There’s ways to do it that we can do in a healthy manner, in a very structured manner. There’s ways to do it. Kids played summer ball all over this country, all over the world. They did it fine. If you’re a minor-league baseball player who is getting paid, you’re not allowed to play baseball right now. There’s ways to do it.”
Moore said the blame for the current situation falls on people like himself — leadership that hasn’t done a good enough job of motivating MLB to implement a plan for player development in this time of COVID concerns.
“We love baseball players and we hurt that baseball players aren’t getting a chance to play baseball,” Moore said. “We understand how meaningful the game of baseball is to kids that are trying to perfect their skills to a level that’s going to allow them to continue to compete and to play.
“That’s why it’s hurtful that they’re not getting the opportunity when I believe that we can do it in a very safe and healthy and constructive manner going forward.”
This story was originally published August 28, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
