Kansas City Royals President of Baseball Operations, Dayton Moore, recently joined KCMO Talk Radio morning show host Pete Mundo to discuss some offseason topics. Among the things discussed were the timing of the lockout, potential breakout candidates, how the Royals will handle Bobby Witt Jr. and more. Moore started out the conversation by mentioning he’s down in Surprise, Arizona and ready to get things rolling.
“We are really fortunate to have a lot of our minor league players down here and some of our staff," Moore said. "We are very hopeful to get a deal in place that everyone is satisfied with. We’re just kind of working through it [labor negotiations] right now. I have great confidence in both sides to work together and we’re hopeful but we are focusing on what we can focus on. There are certain things you can’t control but we’re focusing on continuing to plan and working with players we have out here.”
Mundo asked Moore what a reasonable ramp-up time would be for players to get a season going as they come out of a lockout period.
“We learned a lot [through the challenge of COVID-19] about what players need to do and how much time they need to get ready," Moore said. "In Spring Training, you always feel like you need four weeks of games.”
“Of course, you can do things with the roster that potentially gives you some flexibility,” Moore added. “Like we saw during COVID, we started with a roster of 28 players. I’m not suggesting that is going to happen but there are things we can do and we learned a great deal from the experience of ramping up in 2020.”
Mundo inquired about the optimism surrounding the young pitching talent that has emerged in the Royals' system over the past couple of years. He asked if the blueprint and planning for success start with those players.
“That’s the core group, we’ve got a great group of young pitchers," Moore said. "We’re going to continue to focus on strengthening that pitching staff. Once we can start making moves it’s going to be very aggressive and we are going to move very quickly. The focus will be putting together the best pitching staff that we can out there. We want to build a championship-caliber pitching staff. We have the makings of that with this young core: the key will be to keeping them healthy.”
Mundo wanted to know what the plans were for budding superstar Witt, who has yet to make his Major League debut.
“We’re not going to put any limitations on Bobby Witt Jr.,” Moore said. “He’s a player we all trust, we’re all excited to watch him continue to develop and take the necessary steps to be a star player to represent this team, our city, our region and certainly baseball. He has all the ingredients to be a star in this game. That being said, we want to temper expectations, but we don’t want to put any limitations on him. Just understand that the Major Leagues are a huge challenge.”
Mundo also wanted to know Moore’s thoughts about the possibilities of a downtown stadium in Kansas City.
“Owner John Sherman is continuing to explore that and to listen to community leaders and businessmen and women to evaluate what is best for this community," Moore said. "John has a great heart for using this team to grow the community and make it one of the strongest communities in the country. Right now he is really focused on making sure we get baseball back and get us back on the field. I can tell you he is an incredible leader, we have a great owner. I believe he will be one of the best owners in baseball. He will go down with that title at some point in time.”
Before ending the interview, Mundo asked for Moore’s thoughts on the universal DH conversation.
“I think 20 years ago I really enjoyed having the pitchers hit but it’s a different era," Moore said. "They were two-way type players and they had more of a feel of what it was like to be in the batter’s box. Pitchers today just want to focus more on the pitching side of things. They’re pitcher only, POs as we call them, and that’s what they do coming up and are 15 and 16 years old. It’s probably time we have that universal DH. I don’t know what will end up happening at the end of the day but if it officially happens it will only come into play during interleague play.”
There were some interesting tidbits throughout the entire interview. Hearing Moore say he is not going to put any limitations on Bobby Witt Jr is terrific news for Royals fans. Hopefully the owners and players can come to an agreement by March 1, otherwise, it seems like the season will start later than anticipated. What piqued your interest the most when reading these quotes or listening to the interview? Let us know in the comments or on Twitter @InsideRoyals.
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