At this point you have to just assume that the joke is on us. I keep thinking that one day after announcing a terrible move that Dayton Moore is going to move aside and Ashton Kutcher is gonna jump out and say "PUNK'D." Moore's latest prank was giving Jason Kendall a two-year deal that could pay him over $6 million dollars.
One day a GM Manifesto will be released with a list of some of Moore's more ridiculous moves and at the bottom it will read "Do not try this at home." I think he may actually be toying with the theory of fielding a replacement level team just to see if all our WAR estimates were right. For all the good that David DeJesus, Alberto Callaspo, Billy Butler, Joakim Soria and Zack Grienke bring, Moore tries to balance that with Kyle Farnsworth, Bruce Chen, Jamey Wright, Horacio Ramirez, Jose Guillen, Willie Bloomquist, Yuniesky Betancourt, and now Kendall.
Back in the day, you would've been hard pressed to find a more productive offensive catcher than Jason Kendall. In four of his first five seasons, Kendall posted wOBA's over .370. In 1998, his wOBA was .396 and, in just under half a season in 1999, he posted a Mauer-esque .420 wOBA. As recently as 2004, he posted above average offensive numbers, but has done little since. Since leaving the Steel City, he has posted the following wOBA's: .305, .321, .272, .293, .290. He has also failed to post a slugging percentage of over .342 over the same period. For his career, less than 2% of the flyballs he's hit have left the yard.
Being a savvy veteran and having a good reputation have magically earned him over 500 plate appearances in each of those seasons. His latest contract indicates that trend will continue. Moore keeps repeating that all these moves are part of "the Process." Either he just overheard Andrew Freidman use the phrase before, or Moore's process just flat out sucks. After this latest stroke of genius, I'm pretty sure it's the latter.
I often wonder, how is this the same man that re-signed Zack Grienke to a fantastic contract extension last season? I guess that serves as the ultimate example that even a broken clock get's it right twice a day. Actually, Royals fans just wish they had the broken clock instead.