Kansas City is coming off a 95 loss campaign, they’ve put the previous season’s Cy Young Award winner on the auction block and Rany Jazayerli sums up the plummeting career fortunes of 3B-turned-LF Alex Gordon thusly, “he seems to be looking for new areas of his game to regress.” But fret not, Royals fans, GM Dayton Moore insists, “the only farm system that compares to ours right now in our division is Cleveland™s”. From Fox Sports’ Jeffrey Flanagan (link swiped from Repoz and Baseball Think Factory) :
œThe organization is much better today than it was at the beginning of last season, Moore told me, œand certainly much better than it was before the trade deadline.
œOverall, the organization is much better than it has been since we started this process. We™ve had four drafts and we™ve had three draft classes out there playing in the minors. The farm system was near the bottom in baseball four years ago and now, thanks to the great work people here have done, it™s near the top.
œAnd certainly the free-agent signings and the trades we™ve made because of those signings have also helped booster this system and the organization. Alberto Callaspo, Scott Podsednik, Rick Ankiel, Kyle Farnsworth — we were able to use those guys and multiply our numbers to get guys on our team either next year or in the next two years.
œYou have to have a long-term perspective. I™ve heard people say that they™re tired of us ˜rebuilding™ every year. Well, we™re not ˜rebuilding.™ We™re building. We have nothing to rebuild from. We haven™t won anything since 1985. I guess you could say we™ve been rebuilding since 1985.”