Dayton Moore says Royals are 'looking to add as much pitching as we can'

One year after targeting starting pitchers in free agency, general manager Dayton Moore says the Kansas City Royals will look to do so again after finishing the 2012 season 72-90. Speaking to Dick Kaegel of MLB.com, Moore said that pitching will be "an area of focus" for the Royals and that they will be looking to add to the group of starters that struggled during the 2012 season:

"I think that we and 28 or 29 other clubs are all focused on the same thing," general manager Dayton Moore said. "You want to look to improve your team in any way possible -- and pitching is always going to be an area of focus for us."

For the third consecutive season, it was Bruce Chen that led the Royals in wins, although his 11-14 record is far from the standard that the team is striving for. The entire group of Royals starters combined for 47 wins and 880 innings pitched, each the No. 13 marks in the 14-team American League with only the Twins posting lesser marks.

While Kaegel rules out the possibility of Zack Greinke returning to the Royals, he did offer some potential players that could the team could add in the offseason:

More realistic free-agent targets might include the likes of the Cardinals' Kyle Lohse, the Tigers' Anibal Sanchez and James Shields, if the Rays don't excercise their club option on him.

Free agency is set to begin at midnight ET on Friday, seven hours after the deadline for teams to make qualifying offers to their players that are set to become free agents.