The KC Royals didn’t fire Dayton Moore solely because of his record. This was key, too
On the night John Sherman bought the Royals in August 2019, I spent the evening calling anyone who might know him. A friend. A business acquaintance. Someone who sat on the same board of a Kansas City philanthropic foundation. Couldn’t afford to be picky.
All of it to answer a simple question: What kind of baseball owner might he be?
The answers were complimentary and informative enough, but they lacked specifics. How could they know?
At long last, three years later, the specifics arrived Wednesday — not strictly with one pivotal decision, but with the reasons behind it.
Sherman delivered his most significant move to date as the Royals’ CEO and chairman, firing Dayton Moore after he’d held the final say on baseball operations for the past 16 years. J.J. Picollo, who a year ago had been promoted to general manager, will now add executive vice president to his title.
It’s a massive decision but also a revealing one, and not solely in terms of Sherman expressing a willingness to move on or change course so drastically. Turns out, it’s not just the results that nudged Sherman.
It’s the process that led to those results.
And this is the part that should make your ears perk up:
“I think sometimes perhaps the data is not as prominent as it should be in this organization,” Sherman said. “... We have to make more data-driven decisions.”
In two sentences, 20 minutes deep into a news conference inside Kauffman Stadium, we learned more about Sherman than we’ve known for the past three years — and it’s the piece that guides his organization’s future. In between his remarks of appreciation of the past with Moore and confidence in a new future with Picollo, Sherman provided us an education about how he wants his baseball team to be built.
With data.
With data-driven transactions.
With a model for sustainability.
Check.
Check.
And check.
That’s not only a fresh perspective here, but a refreshing one. The Royals are stuck in the fifth year of a rebuild – it has been seven years since they won the World Series — but they have, in some facets, operated in 2022 as though they’re building to win that 2015 World Series all over again, where scouting is paramount, followed by all else.
While the jewels of Moore’s tenure will forever fly above the team Hall of Fame in left field, the methods of obtaining those flags have evolved, and those who don’t follow suit just fall behind. Baseball has always been heavily data-driven, but never to this degree. It is a sport of information overload, and while the Royals built a department to acquire such information, they’ve sometimes left it in the loading zone, allowing it to take a back seat to what their eyes tell them.
That most noticeably shows up in the organization’s development and evaluation of pitchers, which will require the primary attention of Picollo in his new role.
There has been frustration — both from Sherman and others in the front office — not in the acquisition of analytical information, but rather its usage, or maybe the ranking of its usage. In the end, as Sherman arrived at a decision he put into practice Tuesday in a meeting with Moore, he used a rationale that falls in line with the modern game.
Analytics? He wants more.
Player development driven by those analytics? More.
Transactions guided by those analytics? More.
This is the future of the Royals, and it’s what other teams have been calling the present for few years now.
“It’s not just about player development. It’s also about your willingness to change your players,” Sherman said. “I don’t want to use the word ‘churn,’ because these are athletes, but building an organization where you have excess talent that would allow you to go get more talent to fill needs and maybe off-setting needs with another team.
“I think on one hand it’s about development; on one hand it’s about data-driven decision-making; on one hand, it’s being willing and trying to upgrade your team all the time.”
The same qualities that make Moore such a redeeming person — namely loyalty and belief in people — have provided oversights in leading a baseball operations department today. He wouldn’t argue that. He’s said it publicly many times. It’s an admirable quality we could all stand to exhibit a little more often, even if in baseball terms, he possesses it to a fault.
And before I continue, I want to make it clear: Moore did what no other small-market general manager could since he was hired here in 2006: He won a World Series. Did it with a team people wanted to root for. Gave Kansas City a celebration many who grew up here probably thought they’d never experience, and their reasoning was sound. The finances of baseball make that pretty dang difficult in small markets. Moore should be forever applauded for it, and in time, a city that called for his departure will probably change its tune.
Moore is drawn to the person. He sticks with the person. It worked.
The people tell a story.
But the data tells one, too, and it’s telling a clearer one with each passing season.
That’s the kind of distinction an owner often leaves to his front office. That Sherman not only became educated about it but used it to push his decision is telling of where this franchise might go.
And it should answer the other question you probably have about all of this: Is it really that much of a change to fire Moore but place his right-hand man in charge?
For starters, when Picollo travels to scout players, he often has a companion in Daniel Mack, who runs the club’s research and development department. Convincing Picollo to implement data — or making it more prominent — in organizational decision-making will not be a chore. He’s among those at the front of this charge.
Recently, as I’ve analyzed things like organizational hitting philosophy with Picollo, the data overtakes our conversations. Layers upon layers of it. He is careful to mention that some players are in need of some particular information, while others need a different set of numbers. It drove the change at hitting coach earlier this season, a decision Picollo made, by the way.
He is well aware that changes are needed on the pitching side of the operation, and I believe those are coming in a matter of days.
Sherman telegraphed that, too. He comes from a Cleveland Guardians organization that has — to borrow his word — churned out a slew of pitching prospects. That’s a model.
Finally, the Royals are prepared to follow it.
This story was originally published September 21, 2022 at 7:56 PM with the headline "The KC Royals didn’t fire Dayton Moore solely because of his record. This was key, too."