It's time for Kansas City Royals GM Dayton Moore and his entire baseball operations department to stand and take a bow.

Their blueprint worked. It might have taken a few years longer than they preferred, but it worked.

Moore was hired as Royals GM on June 8, 2006, and eight years and fourth months later, he has helped bring the franchise an American League pennant. Kansas City had a losing record for the first seven years of his tenure there. In fact, none of his teams had won more than 75 games in a season until last season, when the Royals went 86-76. This year they went 89-73, but they had to settle for a wild-card spot. Obviously they've made the most of their first trip to the playoffs in 29 years.

Eight years might seem like a long time, but when you look at the history of other small-market teams who have succeeded, such as Oakland, Montreal/Washington, Tampa Bay and Minnesota, history shows it does take six to eight years, if done properly.