[duncan_idaho]

What Moore was able to do in the first decade of his tenure in admirable.

He didn’t get in lucky in convincing David Glass to spend more money on the draft than all but 1-2 other teams from 2007-2011.

He didn’t get lucky in completely rebuilding an awful scouting system, especially in Latin America, where the Royals had no presence for decades.

He didn’t get lucky in making an incredibly impactful trade of Zack Greinke, which brought in two future AlCS MVPs and also a valuable trade chip that was used ...

As part of another not-lucky move, the trade of Wil Myers and Mike Montgomery and Jake Odorizzi for James Shields and Wade Davis.

He didn’t get lucky in building the top farm system in baseball.

Now, when the MLB hard slot went into place, the Royals spent four years before they adjusted to the new normal and moved away from betting so heavily on HS pitching (an approach that works great when working from an unlimited pool of $$ but gets harder when your funds re slotted/limited).

He experienced some bad luck with Ventura’s death and Kyle Zimmer’s injury trouble (Zimmer was on track to be a true ace before injuries struck).

The development in the system has been average at best. It has improved over the past 2-4 years with new philosophies and more tailored-to-individual approaches, but it has not cashed in the way it needs to over the 2010s.

As for the farm system itself, currently it’s a pretty middle-of-the-pack system. Starting pitching depth is outstanding. That goes beyond the name games everyone knows (Singer, Lynch, Kowar, Lacy, Bubic) and includes guys like Austin Cox and Yefri del Rosario and Yohanse Morel and Jon Bowlen and Zack Haake and Alec Marsh. The depth of young starting pitching is better than it has ever been under Moore. The positive there is the variability of SP development.

The position player side is lighter than you’d like. I think Khalil Lee is going to be a good big leaguer, even if he never fully taps into his raw power, because of his defense, speed, and OBP skills. I am super high on Kyle Isbel as a David DeJesus-type player (who was very good/valuable for some really bad teams). Those are the only real contributors I see super close (2021). Obviously, Witt has lineup-centerpiece ability. Erick Pena also has that type of upside but is miles away. Same with Wilmington Candelario.

The trio of Pratto, Melendez, and Matias have great potential but huge question marks. If they can get ONE of those guys to be at least MLB starter quality, that helps the system a lot.

It’s not the Padres or Rays or Dodgers system. But there IS a lot more talent there than just the big 5 pitchers everyone talks about.

If you add Kumar Rocker to the system, you’re adding a ready-made ace who doesn’t need work or development (Vandy already did that for you). All he needs is to stay healthy as he builds up to a full workload. That would be a huge boost and also make it possible to start packaging some of that surplus SP to add a few position players to the pipeline.

The 2021 draft is viewed as a very good one right now, so having a top bonus pool will go a long way (especially since KC should be back in comp balance round a).