Were the Royals too close to nearing almost legitimacy?

"So long, suckers..."

In a stunning sneak-attack , the Brewers became the team most likely to land Kansas City ace, Zack Greinke, by actually trading for him.  The deal makes my stomach turn a little, and not because the 2009 AL Cy Young winner will now be in my team's division, but because of the way this all happened.  I am almost always against a team trading its best player, but in baseball, you can't have Kobe Bryant and then wait for a Pau Gasol.  So, Dayton Moore could have done this and been forgiven.  In fact, Moore could have done this and been applauded.  But, by and large, this move was a whiff.

You see, KC fans had to realize what the GM was up against.  First and foremost, Greinke asked for a trade.  I will never understand why GMs will ever keep a player who asks for a trade, or fans that want them to.  In my mind, as a fan, not only do I take a little parochial offense to such a request, but I also recognize the poor business of keeping disgruntled players.  Take two seconds to think and I guarantee you'll come up with a player who wanted off of a team toward the end of his contract, the team kept him (usually in some staring-contest equivalent between the player and GM), the player quits (or at least seems to), his trade value plummets, and inevitably the original team got nothing for him and couldn't re-sign him (obviously).  Dayton Moore could have easily done what I've wanted a manger to do forever: be totally public about it and include the player.  Within five minutes of the call from Greinke's agent asking for the trade, you call the newspaper and tell them: Zack Greinke no longer wants to be a part of the Royals organization, and we're not in the business of forcing people to stay on our team; we have told Zack's agent that we want to work with him, but will not take diminished value; therefore, Zack is well aware that he will be showcased with each start until we can get the value back we think he has; we wish him luck.  Why can't he do that?  Because fan bases tend to see letting a star walk as management giving up on the team.  In reality, that would be the clearest example of a GM's attempt to stop the team's foundering.  Secondly, Greinke had a no-trade clause to 15 teams.  This meant that Moore not only had to find a suitor, but to find one in a subset of the league.

So, surely, the Royals' GM had some leeway.  But, he managed still to be a villain.  The final tally was: Royals-Alcides Escobar, Jake Odorizzi, Lorenzo Cain, and Jeremy Jeffress, Brewers-Zack Greinke, Yuniesky Betancourt, and $2 million.  Here's how that breaks down.  Escobar and Betancourt are as close to a wash as you can get (Escobar is a few years younger, with a lot less pop, slightly better defense, and an identical .288 OBP).  According to Baseball America, Odorizzi and Jeffress are the numbers 1 and 3 prospects respectively in the Brewers farm system.  Odorizzi's former pitching coach with the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers described him this way in July of this year, "...he's like a Zack Greinke to me."  So, let's say, for the sake of a ludicrous argument, that we can equate Odorizzi to the Cy Young winner.  That leaves us with $2 million dollars for Jefress and Cain.  Jefress was the Brewers' first-round draft pick in 2006 and has been shuffled up and down the farm.  He seems to excel at Single A ball, get hammered in Double A, and he did pitch exactly one inning in the bigs last year (it was scoreless).  The fact that Jefress was the Brewers' number 3 prospect says less about Jefress's talent than it does about the Brewers farm system.  Lorenzo Cain, though, is a Stud, and just what the doctor ordered for KC in terms of speed (offensively and defensively) and OBP (about .400 in AA and AAA).

And that $2 million purchase seems to make Moore out to be pretty darn smart.  You get a one-time first-rounder to sit on in case he finds "it," and a hustle guy that could be major-league ready out of Spring Training.  But, there are two hang-ups.  One, that ludicrous argument earlier.  Odorizzi has never thrown a pitch at the major league level.  There is no way to equate him to Greinke, no matter what his Single-A coach says.  But, maybe that's even fine.  The Royals sure weren't going to be contenders in the next 3 years anyway (and maybe never as long as Ron Gardenhire exists).  What's truly disappointing about this move is the failure to apply pressure to a club that came out of nowhere.  It's almost as if the Brewers just tricked Moore with unexpectedness.  We're talking about a Cy Young winner who's a household name despite playing for the Royals.  At the very least, you can keep your $2 million and Betancourt, right?  Brewers' GM Doug Melvin really stuck it to Dayton Moore in this one.  It's almost as if he demanded the shortstop and cash just to prove Moore was out of his league (as if the Cabrera and Francouer signings weren't enough).

With so much grace, Moore should've aimed higher and pushed harder.  If he hadn't gotten a deal done, he could've told KC fans that there was no way this proud organization was giving up one of its best pitching talents since Bret Saberhagen without an amazing package of players.  But, he didn't.  He got scared of getting nothing and took the first multi-first-rounder package he saw.  At least Matt Cassel's back, KC.