January 10, 2008
Building a Foundation
Royals Authority likes the way Dayton Moore is building from the ground up. For example, not Moore's far east strategy:
Right now, Kansas City really is the other side of the world from baseball in the Far East. Those guys know the West Coast and everyone knows the Yankees, Sox and Cubs, they don't know Kansas City from Amarillo.
In signing Yabuta, the Royals went and got a mid-level Japanese player. A guy everyone in the league knows and a guy who has been successful for a long time. Yabuta is the first real brick (you really don't want to count Mac Suzuki do you?) of the Royals building a bridge to attract Far Eastern stars. In addition, by the way, they got in Yabuta a setup reliever whose numbers are awfully similar to those of Red Sox reliever Hideki Okajima before he came over to the states. Anybody not take an 'Okajima type year' from Yabuta in 2008?
The Royals followed up Yabuta by inking the well known and revered Hideo Nomo to a minor league deal. It is probably a one in ten shot that Nomo helps the Royals on the field this year, but just linking a star of Nomo's stature to the boys in blue suddenly turns Kansas City from being 'someplace over there' to 'someplace'. That's a big difference. Next time a Fukudome or Kuroda comes over, maybe the Royals do get a return phone call.
Read the whole thing for an excellent analysis of what's going on in KC.
Of course, Okajima learned a new pitch when he got to the States. That was the big difference between here and Japan for him. So don't expect 'an Okajima year' just because they have similar stats in Japan.
They also inked Chin-Hui Tsao to a minor league deal, so they also put themself on the map in Taiwan ;)
I'm guessing their next move is to sign Kim to finish the Asian triangle then hah :P
