HR people don't get paid to follow sports, so the HR Capitalist does it for you, translating the scores and news into a language you can understand....

Today's Byline - the 2007 Major League Baseball Season is upon us,   First up in the preview - my team - The Kansas City Royals..   As the Little River Band once said, "Have you heard about the lonesome loser?"  This once proud franchise has fallen on hard times, the result of cost cutting across the board...  Here's what you need to know about the Royals, translated into HR issues...

Team - Kansas City Royals

History - A once proud franchise that failed to change with the times.  Somebody moved the cheese in the late 80's, Royals are just now figuring out this whole Internet thing.  A little behind the times is being more than fair....

Primary HR Issue - Revenue model changed in baseball, meaning other team markets (i.e. companies) had a bigger HR recruiting budget.  When the Royals couldn't do the equivalent of paying a headhunter fee (i.e., buying Free Agents at any cost), they should have developed from within and built their model on securing young talent and advancing it through the organization...

What the Royals Did Instead - Faced with pressure on margins, the Royals slashed their scouting organization (went lean on recruiting and talent management staff for you corp HR types), and basically hired whoever applied for their low paying positions on Monster...

Result - Went from a World Championship in 1985 to 50 wins (half of the normal total from the 80's) in 2006.  Attendance cut by over half, leading to decreased revenues across the board...

New Plan - Build through the draft aka Moneyball.... We'll see how it works....

Postscript - at the time of writing this, Royals are 1-0 for the season and full of hope!  Season has 161 games remaining (drat)...  At least they are 1-0 against Deb's Red Sox, who have a payroll 3X that of the Royals...