No hard feelings in K.C.
Fans used to moving parts after Hosmer, Cain depart via free agency
SURPRISE, ARIZ.— Early in Eric Hosmer’s career, when it was clear he would be a star first baseman, a fan at a Rotary Club asked a pointed question to Dayton Moore, the general manager of the Kansas City Royals. For decades, the fans had yearned for a player like Hosmer with the talent and charisma to stir a dormant franchise. But this fan was worried. He wanted to know if the Royals could possibly sign Hosmer to a long-term contract.
“Just enjoy him,” Moore replied. “And, no, we probably won’t be able to keep him here long-term. But that’s OK. Just enjoy watching him play. Let’s not wish away today.”
The Royals made the most of their todays with Hosmer and Lorenzo Cain. After 28 seasons without a playoff appearance, they rumbled into two World Series in a row, losing in 2014 and winning in 2015. Every small-market franchise tries to build through homegrown talent and most fall short of a title. K.C. actually broke through. Now Hosmer is a San Diego Padre, after signing for eight years and $144 million (U.S.). Cain signed a five-year, $80million contract to rejoin the Milwaukee Brewers, who traded him to the Royals in 2010.
Other stalwarts from the World Series teams are also gone: Wade Davis, Ben Zobrist, Johnny Cueto, Ryan Madson, James Shields, Jarrod Dyson and the unsigned Greg Holland and Mike Moustakas. Yordano Ventura was killed in a car crash in the Dominican Republic before last season. Hosmer wears Ventura’s No. 30 with the Padres, a lasting bond to a team and a town he helped change.
“They kept hearing over and over again that guys would come in and get back to being a playoff threat again,” Hosmer said. “It took 30 years for that to happen . . . and the fans appreciated the way we played. We would show emotion and they would show emotion back.”
That was not always true in Kansas City, where hopelessness had sometimes reigned. In 1999, thousands of fans walked out of Kauffman Stadium in the middle of a game against the Yankees, protesting baseball’s tilted salary structure. Some littered the field with fake $100 bills. The Royals lost 97 games that season, just another in a sad string of gloom. Moore arrived in 2006 and finally hit on the winning formula for a team with a modest payroll and a spacious park: contact hitters, slick defenders, dominant relievers and short-term No. 1 starters acquired for prospects.
It was always supposed to be temporary. That is how it works in modern baseball, and why teams scramble to align their top prospects’ peak seasons. If a bunch of young players mature at the same time, the team will probably get a few years of prime performance at affordable rates. When the players then get too expensive, most of them disperse.
The Royals have kept some of their core players; left fielder Alex Gordon is signed through 2019, and starter Danny Duffy and catcher Salvador Perez through 2021. Duffy, who earns $14 million this season, wanted more players to join them.
“I was hoping if one guy comes back, or two guys come back, maybe it’ll spark another guy to take that and run with it, too,” he said. “But the majority of guys I came up with are in other jerseys or unsigned.”
While some fans jeer players who have left, Cain doesn’t expect that reaction when he re- turns to Kansas City with the Brewers next month. Some Royals fans in Arizona have already wished Cain and Hosmer well and no one around the team believes the players tarnished their legacies by leaving.
“For what they did in Kansas City, the Royals fans are always going to be grateful,” said Gordon, who grew up in Nebraska and went to Royals games every summer.
Neither the Padres nor the Brewers had ever given such a lucrative contract in free agency. Neither team has won a championship, either — and, incredibly, Hosmer and Cain are the only players on either team’s 40-man roster who have ever played in the World Series.
Moore could have left Kansas City, too, if he had pushed Royals owner David Glass to allow him to interview for the Atlanta Braves general manager job last fall. Before joining the Royals, Moore had spent 12 years with the Braves, who now have a thriving farm system and seem much closer to contending.
Yet Moore was content to leave the decision to Glass, who did not want to lose his team’s architect. Moore’s passion for the job has never waned, he said, even as he starts over.