Royals have infrastructure for sustained success, but it’s on players to prove it

John Schuerholz answered his phone Friday in Atlanta moments after speaking on “sustainability” to a group from Liberty Media, parent company of the Atlanta Braves.

While it may seem a curious time for Schuerholz to be addressing the topic, considering the free fall of the Braves, the perils in play were part of the talk being given by the Braves’ vice-chairman and former key Royals executive who helped fashion two remarkable periods in each organization — including an impossible 14 straight division titles in Atlanta.

“ ‘If you step off the beam and lose sight of your central elements, you’ll suffer and you may have to step back and restructure, refocus and reload — which is what we’re doing right now’ ” was among the points made to the group by Schuerholz, who is 75 and recently retired from the team presidency to take a reduced role.

That’s also what the Royals ultimately came to face the last time they were on top in 1985.

Then-GM Schuerholz felt the organizational ground changing above and around him and, as The Star’s Sam Mellinger once summarized, “a franchise built on scouting and player development fell for the quick fix in free agency.”

Didn’t work out so well.

So Schuerholz, who left for Atlanta in 1990, on many levels is sensitive to the Royals’ challenges in this new frontier after spending their last generation just trying to become credible again.

“Sustainability, the key word in this conversation, is the most difficult challenge in our business,” he said. “A season that lasts 162 regular-season games, 30-some spring training games, an unknown number of postseason games, a lot of wear and tear on your product, on your players, on everybody’s frazzled nerves from one year to the next.”

Speaking of frazzled nerves …

The Royals were 17-18 entering their game Saturday night — the same record they had at this stage when they went on to the 2014 World Series — but have had fans panicking in droves after losing 12 of 16 before returning home and winning Friday.

Logically, with the nucleus of the last two years back, there’s no reason they shouldn’t be able to contend no matter what points of concern they have to work through now.

That doesn’t mean they automatically should return to the World Series, but this is where it’s about one thing:

The first linchpin to durability is about performance from a group earning a club-record payroll that needs to (and figures to) justify the faith and investment the Royals have made.

The financial challenges here and now are different than what Atlanta faced in its heyday under Schuerholz.

But the key common denominator was and will be getting ongoing production out of the designated heart of the team.

In part, that’s on the front office to make the prudent decisions.

In part, that’s on the players to perform as they might be expected to based on their pasts and reasonable projections of their futures.

“We averaged 10 new players through our great run of championships,” Schuerholz said. “It was done sometimes by necessity … But we always managed to keep the core. It wasn’t always the same core, but we decided who our core seven or eight players were going to be for us.”

Sorting out the intricacies of who should get those long-term contracts as more come due in the next few years will be complicated, but general manager Dayton Moore has demonstrated imagination and resourcefulness in securing long-term deals with Sal Perez and Yordano Ventura and keeping Alex Gordon when few figured it was financially plausible.

That’s just one aspect of why the Royals appear geared to thrive for the near future because of all that’s been set in motion by Moore since he was hired 10 years ago this month from the Braves:

“If there’s anybody who could do something like we’re talking about,” Schuerholz said, “it’s Dayton Moore.”

That’s because Moore’s integrity, vision and passion not only can’t be denied but also are contagious.

It’s because of who Moore has surrounded himself with, including numerous men he worked with in Atlanta — such as vice-presidents/assistant GMs J.J. Picollo and Rene Francisco and manager Ned Yost.

The single-minded purpose in the Royals’ organization is evident in every phase of the operation, and you can see the respect and dedication to Moore everywhere from owner David Glass to the front office to the clubhouse.

That’s the fundamental starting point of sustaining competitiveness, particularly in terms of ownership commitment to trust and spend on player development or free agency or retainment.

“It’s possible (to stay strong) once you’ve put yourself in the position that they have,” Schuerholz said. “Where you’ve built the infrastructure, you’ve built a platform, you’ve built a program. You have a plan, you have the people. They’re the right people, they’re empowered, they’re trusted, they’re out working … all with the same focus and the same goals and the same perspective.”

That doesn’t make anyone infallible, of course, and there are universal cautionary tales in the Braves’ downfall after more than two decades of contention: Overextended contracts and a void in developing players (anticipated to soon be behind them) lurk over every organization.

But Braves’ rebuilding time notwithstanding, Schuerholz knows what it takes and has a particular insight both into Moore himself and the fundamental makeup of the Royals.

Before the new Major League Baseball team in Kansas City had a logo or even a name, after all, Schuerholz was part of the braintrust putting it together in 1968 before its inception in 1969.

Then, he literally was its model for the future: The young front office man’s numerous initial tasks included trying on the first uniforms.

He’ll never forget, he said, laughing, walking back and forth from one end of general manager Cedric Tallis’ office to another as Tallis and others evaluated the look.

In more dignified capacities that ultimately led to becoming general manager in 1981, Schuerholz was among the architects of the admirable early success of the Royals: During 1976-1985, they won six division titles and played in two World Series.

He then went on to forge a form of dynasty in Atlanta, which had lost 300 games in three years when he arrived after the 1990 season and promptly made five World Series appearances in the 1990s with the help of people like Moore.

The lesson, Schuerholz said, is if you have the right people in alignment success is inevitable.

“But succeeding for the first time is a lot easier, trust me, than maintaining success,” he said. “Because of the variations that occur in the setup of your organization and your roster and your players, and individual players’ health and well-being, their capabilities, their aging, their costliness.

“All of it has to be managed, and it has to be in a look-forward way. You have to be able to project.”

He added, “I would not be surprised if it happens in Kansas City because of the people who are there doing it.”

But the front office can only do so much, too, especially after (rightly) tapping its front-line farm system to go all-in in pursuit of the 2015 title.

Now it’s on the team to “keep the line moving” — the rallying cry last postseason that now speaks to a daunting but welcome new sort of challenge.

This story was originally published May 14, 2016 at 4:49 PM with the headline "Royals have infrastructure for sustained success, but it’s on players to prove it."