I had been doing background work on a piece about player acquisition by the three recent successful rebuilds when, lo and behold, Darren’s article on the same thing was posted on Monday. Great minds run in the same direction and all that — and the result was lucky for you, because Darren did a much better analysis than I ever could.
However, there is one area that still deserves scrutiny. In fact, I’d argue, a category more critical than player acquisition — the acquisition of the people who do the acquiring.
It all starts at the top, and for the Royals, Astros, and That Other Team (hereinafter TOT) it started differently.