Padres Hope to Follow Royals Blueprint

Mr. Royal.

Royals Background

The hiring of AJ Preller in San Diego has created a reasonable amount of buzz for the team to see what tricks he can pull to get the Padres into the postseason sooner than later for the first time since 2006. Similarly, when Dayton Moore was hired to helm the Kansas City Royals he came with expectations for the first Royals postseason since 1985. This year he accomplished that feat, and now the Royals are facing off with the Baltimore Orioles for the championship of the American League. That Dayton Moore hiring by the way? June 2006. 8 years ago…

The Royals were a bit of a dynasty in the late 70’s and early 1980’s. They won the World Series in 1985, lost it in 1980, lost in the ALCS in ’84, ’76-’78, and lost the LDS in ’81.

One thing to keep in the mind is that when Moore took over the team had been doing really bad. They had lost 100 games 4 of the past 5 seasons, but have not done so since Moore took over except 2006.

Now of course there are different pieces with different teams, but it bears doing a quick check on the Royals to see how they got to where they are and what role Mr. Moore played in bringing them there. While there are many factors that go into something like this, I will take a quick look at the Royals starting rotation, key bullpen pitchers, and starting 9 to analyze how they got there and perhaps give a glimpse of the time frame we could be looking at for the Padres.