On the national stage, it's hard to know how Wednesday's firing of Kansas City Royals team president Dayton Moore registers in the baseball universe. Is it a shock? An occasion to shrug? A collective sense of utter indifference?
On the surface, it can hardly be termed a surprise. Sixteen years into Moore's tenure in Kansas City, the Royals are on pace to reach the upper 90s in losses this season, the fifth full season of the club's current rebuild. Since the end of the 2017 season, the Royals have lost 98 of every 162 games they have played, a rate worse than all but two teams across baseball.
But in Kansas City, Moore's departure from the Royals marks the end of an era -- one that was highlighted by two American League pennants and the 2015 World Series crown, the second title in franchise history.
Those peak seasons from 2013 to 2017 were part of a five-year run in which the Royals won 80 or more games each campaign. The first of those seasons snapped a decade-long drought in Kansas City without a winning season and was just the Royals' second season on the right side of .500 since 1994. Still, those five seasons were the only ones during the Moore era in which the Royals reached as many as 80 wins.