"Immediate gratification" is your problem Royals fans; you keep expecting your team to win and your players to play with heart and pride...

One thing Dayton Moore does not want to do is hold a town hall meeting right now.

Retaining his manager for next season was not his biggest mistake. Arrogance was his biggest mistake in speaking with the Kansas City Star yesterday.

Not taking personal responsibility was also indefensible.

His criticism of Luke Hochevar for providing this team's latest laughable moment was legitimate. (Of course, you should never turn down a good laugh in a hundred loss season...) But, throwing Hochevar under the bus just raises a really embarrassing question for Moore and the scouting system.

Who in the world would have thought Luke Hochevar a number one draft pick? Longoria and Lincecum were available. A simple question here: What, exactly, is Hochevar's dominant pitch? What, exactly, is his out pitch? What, exactly, did the scouts see?

Hate to open this can of worms again, but you have to guess Longoria and Lincecum's level of faith just wasn't strong enough (or visible enough) to entice the Royals' scouting department.

It is just hard to imagine what they saw in him otherwise.

And Moore has since stocked the team with veterans who make a baseball lover cry. You don't need a list -- you know already from Yabuta to Gullien. Good teams are strong up the middle. No need to say more, Moore.

But, unfortunately, he did.

“In our immediate-gratification society,” he said, “everybody wants to point fingers. But from what I’ve seen from everything that goes on in this organization, Trey Hillman’s leadership is one of the strengths of our organization... People can debate that, and I know they will, but it’s one of the strengths of our organization because the guy is a winner and he works and he cares.”

The arrogance of anyone describing the fans of this once proud franchise (20 years hence) in terms of immediate-gratification is obvious. But hidden in that gem is the real problem. The only ways you can call Hillman a winner are in his personal life because he has won nothing in Major League baseball on the field. His leadership on Sunday mornings is sound, and you have to applaud him for it, but he has not been able to lead a team of young men to play hard, or smart, or with heart, or to motivate them to master the fundamentals of a game that absolutely depends on the fundamentals unless you have the talent god mistakenly gave Manny Ramirez

SO, no, I don't think Hillman has shown he can manage at the major league level. And, it's inarguable the Royals are stocked with players who can't play at the major league level. But the most glaring problem is that the general manager cannot get the job done at the major league level.

--Lofflin, disappointed.