KC Royals: Groundhog Day Do Overs For Dayton Moore

Kansas City Royals general manager Dayton Moore has made many decisions in his 10-year tenure in Kansas City. What choices would Moore do over if he was trapped in a time loop like Bill Murray in the iconic 1993 movie Groundhog Day.

Who knows? Maybe the only reason that the Kansas City Royals were able to win the 2015 World Series was because the Baseball Gods allowed Moore to keep trying until he got it right.

First I’ll start with some honorable mentions. One of Dayton Moore’s first moves after officially taking the reigns as general manager of the KC Royals following the 2006 June draft was trading away pitching prospect J.P. Howell for centerfielder Joey Gathright.

While Gathright had loads of speed, and was quite skilled at jumping over cars (watch the video below. It’s pretty cool), he couldn’t hit enough to be a useful player. Meanwhile, J.P. Howell is still an effective reliever in the major leagues with a career ERA of 3.74 for an ERA+ of 110 (10% better than a league average pitcher). Howell posted an 1.43 ERA last season for the Dodgers in 44.0 innings pitched, which followed two seasons with ERA’s under 2.50.

Joey Gathright Jumps Over Car:

While not a good move, you can see Moore’s determination to improve the Kansas City Royals athleticism.

Other moves that didn’t quite make the Groundhog Day cut were trading pitcher Jeremy Affeldt to the Rockies for Scott Dohmann and Ryan Shealy, signing Yunieski Betancourt not once but TWICE, watching Luke Hochevar wallow in the starting rotation for five seasons before converting him to the bullpen in 2013, and signing Omar Infante to a four-year, $32 million deal in 2014 with Christian Colon ready to take over at second.

Next: An Under-The-Radar Rotation Blunder