After de-internetting myself for the past two weeks, I get to come back to this.
Any Royals fan knows what "this" is. I don't need to link to anyone's blogs. The fallout is widespread.
There isn't much that can be said about the acquisition of Yuniesky Betancourt. Or at least there isn't much that can be said to positively speak about the newest Royal. He is one of the worst everyday players in the Majors. Moreover, Daniel Cortes was one of the pieces dealt to get him.
There has been talk that perhaps Cortes's departure was related to a pair of misdemeanor charges filed against him related to drunken public urination.
If the Royals front office was trying to send a message, the only one they sent was to the fans.
That message is that the front office has no idea what they're doing.
In the offseason, I was willing to give Dayton Moore the benefit of the doubt when it came to the deals he had made. I believed that he could rebuild the bullpen with ease. I was willing to see how these pieces came together. I was of the "wait and see" camp, not wanting to eviscerate the front office for moves that could actually pan out.
Well, Ramon Ramirez is tearing it up for Boston (ERA+ of 200) while Coco Crisp is out for the year after playing with a messed up shoulder for what almost had to have been the entire season.
His OPS+ on the season was 91 when he went down. Leo Nunez has played well for Florida (ERA+ of 108) while Mike Jacobs is unplayable in the field and has posted a .218/.294/.401/.695 split while posting an OPS+ of 83.
Signings like Horacio Ramirez, Sidney Ponson, and Kyle Farnsworth have proved to be terrible. Even Juan Cruz, who was a universally praised signing, can only be qualified as a bust.
The only offseason acquisition that comes to mind as being even remotely solid is Willie Bloomquist, and that is largely because expectations were so low for Bloomquist in the first place.
Now there have certainly been a slew of injuries to key players on this Royals team. Alex Gordon is just now set to make his return to the team after playing poorly in seven games to start the season. Joakim Soria was injured for a month. Coco Crisp is now out for the season. Pieces of the bullpen John Bale, Doug Waechter, and Robinson Tejeda have both missed extensive time calling for Hillman to rely too heavily upon sketchy arms in ill-fitting situations.
Of course, Trey Hillman would have found a way to mismanage his bullpen even with all of the tools at his disposal.
But all of that is beside the point.
Dayton Moore just traded legitimate prospects, one who was very recently rated the top arm in the organization and the other a lefty (and we all know about their yearning for lefties), for a terrible player.
A lazy player who does absolutely nothing well past goldbricking.
I took on the task of devoting myself to writing a blog solely dedicated to the Kansas City Royals this past year. I thought things were looking up.
Now we find ourselves rooting for a team in the midst of a soul-crushing spiral. Not even a Cy Young-caliber first half from Zack Greinke has been able to save this team.
The front office is looking increasingly clueless as the offense is in its third straight year of regression, and they just traded away prospects who could have reasonably yielded a legitimate Major Leaguer but instead netted Yuniesky Betancourt.
After ten-plus years of getting increasingly upset with the Chiefs front office, the appearance of the Royals moving in the right direction for the past three years was one we Kansas City fans needed to cling to.
Yet I can no longer delude myself into believing that the Royals are moving in the right direction.
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