Dayton Moore ‘frustrated’ with Kansas City Royals: ‘We just haven’t been healthy’
After an offseason distinguished by the veteran free-agent additions of first baseman Carlos Santana, starting pitcher Mike Minor and center fielder Michael A. Taylor, capped with a three-team trade that brought left fielder Andrew Benintendi to the Kansas City Royals, general manager Dayton Moore has seen his ballclub battle inconsistency through the first 70 games.
The Royals held the best record in the majors on May 1. By June 1, they’d gone through an 11-game losing streak, came out the other side and climbed a game above .500. Now after enduring a stretch of 11 losses in 12 games, the Royals (32-38) hit the road for 10 games having just taken two of three from the Boston Red Sox.
The Royals enter this week in third place in the American League Central Division, 10 games behind the first-place Chicago White Sox.
Asked whether he had any misgivings about not having gone all-in on development and getting top prospects established and acclimated to the majors, Moore said, “I like where we are. I’ve been frustrated, Mike (Matheny) has been frustrated, our players have been frustrated, because we just haven’t been healthy. You know what, there are 29 other teams that can tell similar stories. We were put together with Benintendi, (Adalberto Mondesi) and everybody to be on the field together.”
Mondesi went on the injured list for the third time this season on Monday. He has played in just 10 of the club’s first 70 games. Benintendi went on the IL last week with a rib fracture after having been one of the most consistent hitters in their lineup.
Moore said that the offseason free-agent additions have done what the Royals front office had hoped “and then some.”
“We’re not in that mindset at this point in time where we’re just going to abandon the commitment to winning in 2021, where we just kind of go all-in from a development standpoint,” Moore said. “We’re just not there.”
The Royals went into this season with the stated goal of fielding a team competitive within the division while also breaking in highly regarded yet unproven prospects, particularly on the pitching staff.
The growing pains of pitchers such as Daniel Lynch and Jackson Kowar have been evident as Lynch made three starts before concerns about tipping pitches prompted his demotion back to the minors. Kowar made two starts this month and got through a total of two innings before having been moved into the bullpen at the end of last week.
Pitchers Brady Singer and Kris Bubic, who both broke into the majors last season, have also had typical up and down results as they pitch in their first full-length major-league season.
“We knew and continue to know that there’s always going to be ups and downs when you transition young players to the major leagues,” Moore said. “ It was no different for Alex Gordon and Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas. I got back to the same thing all the time. Clayton Kershaw was a .500 pitcher the first three years of his career with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Adam Wainwright didn’t break into the major leagues as a top rotation starter.”
Gordon, Hosmer and Moustakas helped form the core of the Royals back-to-back American League championship teams in 2014 and 2015 as well as the World Series winning club in 2015.
Kershaw, one of the best pitchers of his generation, has won three Cy Young Awards, five ERA titles, a National League MVP and earned eight All-Star selections in 14 seasons.
Wainwright, a former first-round draft pick, has pitched 16 seasons in the majors, recorded 172 wins, won two Gold Gloves and earned three All-Star selections with the St. Louis Cardinals. Both Kershaw and Wainwright have won World Series championships.
“At the end of the day, you trust in what you see, the character and the quality of the pitches,” Moore said. “Usually, lack of success can be traced right back to command and repeatability of deliveries and slowing things down and understanding how to make pitches in the stretch and field your position and holding runners.
“There’s just a lot of different things that go into this. We all recognize the stuff. As long as pitchers stay positive and we continue to support their efforts, they’ll get through it.”
Camp with a cause
Moore spoke to reporters while 120 campers took part in the first day of his seventh annual “C” You in the Major Leagues camp at the Jewish Community Center in Overland Park. The camp will continue through June 24.
The camp originated from the aftermath of a deadly shooting rampage by white supremacist F. Glenn Miller Jr. in April 13, 2014.
Miller shot and killed Dr. William L. Corporon, 69, as well as his 14-year-old grandson, Reat Underwood. Miller then shot Terri LaManno, 53, at Village Shalom, an assisted living center.
Miller, convicted of capital murder in 2015, died in prison earlier this year.
“Back in April of 2014, there was a very tragic event in our community,” Moore said. “It speaks to all of our hearts, the loss of life of Dr. William Corporon, Reat Underwood, Terri LaManno all lost their lives. Their families have changed. Future generations have changed. Our community was hurt. We were wounded.
“Later that year, we came and met with Bob Hennecke and some of the special people here at The J and just wanted to know what we could do to help. We basically said we cared and what can we do. They asked us if we’d be willing to run a baseball camp here. We looked at it as a tremendous opportunity.”
