When Dayton Moore looked to retool the Kansas City Royals this winter, he seemed to have a clear preference for players from Theo Epstein’s Chicago Cubs.
I suppose that really shouldn’t surprise anyone. Not only did the Cubs win the World Series last season, the two teams were built with similar front-office blueprints. In fact, Cubs President of Baseball Operations Theo Epstein viewed the Royals as a role model. He told Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe in January of 2016:
“We spent a lot of time talking about KC as we planned our rebuild,” Epstein acknowledged.