Pitching development has been the white whale of Dayton Moore’s tenure with the Royals. He came to Kansas City with grand dreams of a rotation that could give him 1,000 innings, that would follow the blueprint set in Atlanta with their legendary pitching staff. But it has been a boulevard of broken dreams for Dayton Moore with Danny Duffy and Yordano Ventura serving as the only significant starting pitchers developed and retained by the Royals over the first 12 years of Dayton’s tenure.
The Royals looked to change that with their 2018 draft, selecting a class heavy with college pitchers.