Kansas City Royals: What we should expect from ownership

As fans of the Kansas City Royals prepare for a new owner, it is important that we are honest with ourselves about our previous owners and what reasonable expectations are.

For those of us old enough to remember the 1980s, we were truly spoiled as fans of the Kansas City Royals. Ewing Kauffman loved Kansas City, and he spent money on the Royals while allowing the baseball guys to make the baseball decisions.

The Royals began playing games in 1969. By 1971, they had their first winning season. From 1976 through 1978, they won three-straight division titles. We all know about how our team success would continue to build all the way to the peak of becoming World Series champions in 1985.

What some now forget is that both before and after 1985 the Royals were still perennially a very good baseball team. From 1985 until Ewing’s death in 1993, the Royals had 5 more winning seasons — including a 92-win season that was still not good enough to make the playoffs. Yes, back then it could be ridiculously difficult to get into the playoffs in some years.

And what did Ewing Kauffman do after that 92-win season that resulted in disappointment? He went out and signed the National League Cy Young winner to, what was at that point, the largest annual salary in baseball history.

Royals fans became accustomed to losing during the Glass era. And accustomed to spending as little money as possible.

Following 2003, the Kansas City Royals would go 9 straight seasons without ever winning more than they lost. Losing at least 90 games became a summer rite of passage for Royals fans. By 2005 we were being sold the same old euphemisms year after year. “Youth Movement.” “Rebuild.” “New Leadership.” They were all just different ways of saying we were terrible, and we had no intention of improving.

We would shuffle through new managers, bring in some dusty old veterans, trade away any young player with value. Over and over and over again. Scott Elarton was our Opening Day starter in 2006, for goodness sakes. Yep, that really happened. The whole thing would have been laughable, had it not been so infuriating.

When Dayton Moore took over as the general manager of the Royals in 2006 and set about to rebuild the organization from the ground up, we had become a punchline. We had cut money at every corner. From big league salaries to player development, to finding talent outside the United States. And there was no need for Fred and Velma to solve the mystery of who had decimated the organization. David Glass had done it all right out in the open.

Dayton Moore was good enough to steer the Royals in the right direction. Now, we need to stay there.

Dayton Moore did some incredible work convincing Glass to invest more in the team. Although the revenue-sharing pouring in from other Major League Baseball teams may also have played a role in that decision.

A couple of ingenious trades by Dayton Moore (of both Zack Greinke and Wil Myers) would lead to the Kansas City Royals’ first winning season in a decade in 2013. First winning season in a decade! We all remember 2014 and 2015. Those seasons were magical. And, even though Dayton deserves a ton of the credit for wise decisions, I am comfortable expressing some gratitude to David Glass for allowing Dayton to put together a major league payroll that was competitive.

And this is where we, as Royals fans, need to be more demanding of our ownership. Putting together a reasonably competitive major league payroll is not a gift to fans. Especially now in the age of revenue sharing. It should be the absolute lowest expectation of an owner.

We have now lost 207 games over 2 seasons. I know it seems unlikely that any team would continue refusing to raise salaries after multiple 100 loss seasons had humiliated them. But, speaking for everyone who lived through the Glass years, I can assure you it is possible. But brutal.

Expecting our owners to respect their fans is more than reasonable. And the new Royals owner should work to earn our respect as his customers.

It appears every MLB owner is intent on just straight up lying to their fans about their Profit and Loss statements. Any finances which are shared are purposefully opaque, yet declarations of losing millions of dollars are common. Just a few years ago, the Kansas City Royals were claiming to be losing $30 million per year. And, we can expect more of the same from our new owner. But with the Royals selling for $1 billion, that particular means of disinformation would seem to have been laid bare for all to see.

I am not going to spend this column explaining how math works, but just ask yourself if a company hemorrhaging $30 million a year in losses would increase in value from $96 million to $1 billion in 20 years? We may be simple unsophisticated baseball fans, but we are not that stupid.

Back in 2006 when David Glass did not like getting tough questions from reporters about the baseball franchise he had clearly run into the ground, he simply revoked the credentials of reporters whose questions he did not want to answer. Again, we should demand better than this.

If dumping payroll is our best option as an organization, then the team should be able to explain to us why that is. And when dumping payroll results in year after year of losing, fans should be expected to demand better. This is a business these guys have chosen. And it is not fine to brazenly lie to your fans or ban reporters who ask tough questions. Our next owner needs to be held to a higher standard than that.

The Kansas City Royals getting John Sherman as a new owner is exciting. It is a breath of fresh air. It is a chance to do things better this time. As fans, we should start by maintaining reasonable expectations of our owner. Losing 90-plus games year after year is not acceptable. Misleading fans about where the organization is and what the plan is to fix it needs to be called out along every step of the way. Banning reporters who ask tough questions is offensive and should not be tolerated by any professional sports league.

The David Glass era had some amazing highs. And some historically low lows — consistently embarrassing lows that should never be repeated. Let us not get fooled into thinking those lows are just a part of the sport. They are not. The Royals can do better. The new ownership can do better than the previous regime. And we fans should expect better.