How Dayton Moore helped the 2024 KC Royals make the MLB Playoffs

Dayton Moore defied history when he gave Salvador Pérez a new contract

Lauded for his deft assemblage of Kansas City's 2014 and 2015 World Series teams but maligned and blamed for the disrepair and despair that befell the club for so many subsequent seasons, and fired shortly before the 2022 campaign ended, Moore took a huge chance in 2021 — he gave Pérez the then-franchise record multi-year deal that he now plays under. Only the mega-deal Bobby Witt Jr. signed last February exceeds the four-season, $82-million contract (with a $13.5 million one-year club option on top of that) arrangement Moore and Pérez agreed to.

Moore's bold move was packed with risk. His was a bad club getting worse, the frugal Royals weren't flush with cash, and questions surrounded Perez — just a year after struggling to a career-low .235 average, he missed the entire 2019 season with Tommy John Surgery, and his improved 2020 pandemic-season .333 average was the uncertain product of playing only 37 of the club's 60 games while battling a pesky eye issue.

And a foreboding cloud of multi-year contract disappointments hung over Kauffman Stadium. Gil Meche signed a $55 million deal to pitch five seasons for KC, but shoulder issues plagued him in the third and fourth years and he retired before the fifth, for which he refused to accept guaranteed pay, began. Then, just before the 2017 season began, the club gave Danny Duffy $65 million for five years, but he posted a full-season winning record only once (7-6 in 2019) before twice suffering flexor problems and being dealt to the Dodgers during the deal's final year.

And although his defense never failed, franchise icon Alex Gordon slashed only .237/.320/.366 with a dismal 84 OPS+ over the four-year life of the $72 million contract that ended after the 2019 season.

Kansas City's tortured experience with big, long-term contracts had to weigh on Moore and ownership as they pondered a new deal with Pérez. And adding to the intrigue of it all was the financial magnitude and effective date of the contract— $82 million for four years with a $13.5 million club option for a fifth, with the first year delayed until 2022. The deal closed, then, before Pérez played even a game in 2021, meaning the Royals had to hope without proof that he wasn't in the decline many thought had already arrived.

Risky? Obviously, but...