A New Beginning

Last week, the Kansas City Royals made a trade I wasn’t for sure GM Dayton Moore was capable of. Moore was somehow(no really, HOW??) able to unload problem child Jonathan Sanchez to the Colorado Rockies for Jeremy Guthrie. First look, and you see two pitchers who have had awful years in new surroundings. Sanchez was horrible for the Royals, and as if that wasn’t enough, didn’t seem like he wanted to be in Kansas City. Guthrie had been traded in the offseason to Colorado from the Orioles, but it was very apparent Coors Field didn’t agree with him. In fact, just looking at the numbers, Guthrie only really seemed to have issues in Colorado, as an ERA of over 9 there attests to. Meanwhile, away from the thin air of the rockies, Guthrie had a very respectable 3.67 ERA. In that last sentence alone,   it gives me hope that at the least Guthrie can be a solid starter, giving the Royals 6+ innings a start, which the team needs badly. On the other hand, Sanchez’s issues range from lack of control to loss of velocity. I can’t imagine a move to an offensively driven ballpark will change that. First glance, and it looks like Dayton won this round, and if that is the case, kudos to him. I give him crap for a lot of his bad major league acquisitions(Yuni TWICE, Francoeur, etc…) but it looks like Moore pulled off a good one here. Time will tell, but it’s conceivable to see the Royals sign Guthrie to a new contract if he performs even moderately like we assume. It’s a boom to a team that needs pitching badly, and needed to rid themselves of Sanchez. Maybe Dayton Moore isn’t as inept as I started thinking he was.