I am concerned he will have just enough success for glASS to keep him around.

Moore is an a very interesting spot.

He's got pitching on the way to help supplement the good young offensive core... and there is some offensive talent on the way.

If he and his scouting folks don't completely blow the 2010 draft (and spend a TON of money in 2011 with little tangible result so far), they're probably in great shape long term. As it is, there's a gap in prospects that's going to require some of the young hitters to develop QUICKLY.

The farm system is strong and has a lot of PREMIUM SP on the way, quickly... but probably does not have a single PREMIUM offensive prospect in it.

You need to turn out a premium hitter and pitcher every 3-4 years for this process to work.

‏RT @McCulloughStar
Moore says Royals budget will be about $90 million for 2014, which is past their "break-even point." Referred to this payroll as a "gamble."

So Moore continues to lie for David Glass. Awesome.

I can believe that our break-even point could be about 90 million, but that certainly isn't "past" our break-even point.

Break even is 89.999 million.

I don't know... I think everybody is just throwing darts with all these financial numbers. DM could be lying through his teeth there. He could be telling the truth. I don't know. I don't know how anyone really knows. We have a terrible TV contract and our attendance isn't that great... so I can't imagine our max payroll is too insane. I think as we move forward the TV contract issue is going to hurt us.

Either way, DM is getting to spend way more than most of the other small market teams, so it shouldn't be an excuse.

Hud is an imbecile.

I'll never understand the walk thing. The ballpark should have zero effect on that. I don't get what he's thinking there.

I thought the ballpark suppressed homers long before DM got there. There's really no sound reason behind it, but for some reason it doesn't happen. We've had a lot of good hitters over the years. Now HR totals are way down and hitting 30 HRs is an accomplishment these days. I don't like that he uses it as an excuse though.

Just for fun, I dug up some old research I did a couple years ago. The books are not open, all we can do is speculate on revenue and costs, but a lot of the big stuff *IS* known, so I think we can take a reasonable stab at a break-even estimate. I have links to support most of this if needed.

Revenue:

National TV: Long-term $50MM. Right now, probably about $45MM since TV deals tend to start below average and end above average.

Our crappy local TV deal: $20MM

Tickets: About $38MM?

Revenue Sharing: About $35MM

Total: Roughly $138MM

Not Included: Concessions, licensing fees on apparel, ad revenue from sponsers. Probably not much there. Jackson County takes all the parking.

Costs, other than salaries for players on the 40-man roster:

MLBPA pensions and related costs: $10MM

Bonus Pools: varies, but probably $10MM

Non-player salary and benefits, ignoring the owner and the board (includes front office, groundskeepers, scouts, GMDM, etc): Unknown, but this has got to be at least $15MM, could be more. The Royals employ over 150 people who aren't players.

Team Travel: Probably $5MM

Rent to Jackson County: 250k + 5% of net receipts, whatever that is.

Utilities: Probably $2.5MM

Costs not included above: Arizona, minor leagues, vendors, debt service (if any?), probably other stuff I didn't think of.

The non-player costs are at least $42.5MM, and could be more. So, our break-even for the 40-man roster could be as much as $95MM (+$5MM when the national TV deal matures), but its probably a bit less than that, so I can believe $90MM. Our next opportunity for a big revenue bump (unless we start selling out the K) is when the local TV deal expires.

Also, the value of the franchise obviously goes up every year since we're talking about one of 30 franchises in a rich-boy's club that wealthy men covet membership to, so he'll make money someday if he sells the team, but I don't count that as part of the annual break-even point.

Frankly I'm tired of hearing our ballpark used as an excuse for everything that our team doesn't do well.

My. Dyin'. Ass.

Pretty much this.

This team would kill on the old carpet, except Belly of course

So they cut Kottaras. The Walk machine.