This Phillies prospect is the son of a former MLB GM, and ‘he shows that on the field’
READING, Pa. — Well before Robert Moore began his time as a minor-league player at Double-A Reading, spending his days training and competing at FirstEnergy Stadium, he got an up-close view of the major-league lifestyle.
The son of longtime executive Dayton Moore, he had a unique upbringing that brought him closer to the sport than most kids. Robert Moore grew up hanging out in the front office’s boxes at Kauffman Stadium and attending postseason games for a Kansas City Royals team that went to back-to-back World Series in the mid-2010s.
And after all those years around the big leagues, Moore is now pursuing a career of his own.
“My whole life, my dad’s been with baseball,” Moore said last month. “All throughout elementary, middle school and high school, every year we’d go to spring training to visit him. So all I really knew was my dad in baseball.”
Moore, 23, lived in Atlanta as a small child while his father worked for the Braves. Dayton Moore was promoted to assistant general manager in 2005, then he was hired as the general manager of the Royals in 2006.
Dayton Moore spent parts of 17 seasons in Kansas City as the GM and later president of baseball operations, assembling a World Series winner in 2015. Robert Moore went to about 60 home games each season between the ages of 9 and 13 to root on his dad’s club. Dayton would coach his son’s Little League team earlier in the day, and then they’d go watch the Royals at night. The entire family would travel during the playoffs, providing Robert Moore with memories of different cities at an early age.
“When I’m young, I really don’t understand how cool it is to be able to watch major-league games every night,” Moore said. “Now, trying to work your way up the system, I realize that was pretty special.”
After high school at Shawnee Mission East in Prairie Village, Kan., Moore played three years of college baseball at Arkansas. He won a Gold Glove at second base for the Razorbacks in his junior season before being drafted by Milwaukee with the No. 72 pick in the 2022 draft.
The Brewers traded Moore and his current minor-league teammate Hendry Mendez for infielder Oliver Dunn ahead of the 2024 season, and Moore has played for Reading since then. In two years with the Fightins, the switch-hitting Moore is slashing just .232/.321/.365 with 14 home runs in 167 games, but he’s a strong defender who played second base, shortstop, third base and center field. While he’s not currently listed on MLB Pipeline‘s list of the top 30 Phillies prospects, he was ranked at No. 10 in ESPN‘s updated rankings of the organization’s prospects in June.
Reading manager Al Pedrique described Moore as a hard worker with solid situational instincts and dedication to his preparation and routine. Sometimes, the coaching veteran thinks he might need to slow the infielder down a bit.
“You can tell he’s always 100 miles per hour. He doesn’t know how to do things easy,” Pedrique said. “There’s nothing wrong with that. I’d rather see a guy with energy, with intensity that he goes about his business, and sometimes that’s very contagious. His teammates can see the energy and the intensity he brings to the table on a daily basis, so it’s good to see that.”
Of course, being exposed to so much high-level baseball in his youth may have had an influence on Moore’s approach.
“Obviously, he’s been around people that know the game, like his dad,” Pedrique said. “He’s a great gentleman, great baseball guy, very smart. I met him two years ago. And obviously, Robert Moore, he shows that on the field.”
Dayton Moore was fired by the Royals in 2022 and joined the Texas Rangers as a senior advisor of baseball operations. These days, the younger Moore said, the executive tunes in to the broadcast of the Fightins’ games and watches each of his at-bats, and he’s made a few trips to Reading to see his son play.
But even though he’s worked in baseball and helped run teams for decades, he’s just the same as any other father when it comes to watching his son chase his dream.
“Honestly,” Robert Moore said, “it’s probably no different than any other dad just encouraging their kid and supporting them.”