On Synergy in Baseball

From the inimitable Royals Review comes this transcript, a quote from Dayton Moore at a blogger get-together Wednesday night in Kansas City.

We’re never gonna out-talent anybody here. I understand it goes with the territory, but there was a lot of criticism deflected about why we would sign a guy like Jeff Francoeur. But the truth of the matter is we’re not going to out-talent anybody here in Kansas City. It’s impossible to do.

We’ve got one of the smallest markets in all of sports, period. Our owner is a terrific owner, but he’s not going to go out and spend a $100 million payroll and a $100 million payroll when we can only sustain a $55 million or $60 million payroll in this market.

So we’ve gotta, our team has to be better than anybody else. We have to have synergy. We have to have togetherness, very similar to what the Colorado Rockies had three years ago. They had some young, talented players. But they played together, they loved each other, their families got along, and they went out and played hard every single night.

Of course, this quote describes a fault line between sabermetrically-inclined and old school baseball analysts. But let us pretend for a while that we all agree that synergy is very important to baseball success. Since Mr. Moore has suggested that the Rockies had this essence three years ago but don’t any longer, it is something that a very similar group of players can have and lose. So, it follows that synergy is something that is almost independent of the players themselves. And, therefore, it can be manipulated.

So! A list of activities for your synergy-less team that needs to find togetherness! All to completed with family in tow, of course.

1) Viagra Ice Cream Socials
2) Red Rover
3) Simulated Broom Hockey
4) “Never Have I Ever”
5) Extreme Egg Toss
6) Sack Race
7) Three-Legged Relay Race
8) Reggae Hum That Tune
9) Human Taco
10) Surprise Trust Falls