So would those 12 year olds win an AL pennant? Or does talent have something to do with it?

There are teams out there with less talent than even the royals, but most have some sort of environment of pride of being a man. When you let 9 other men beat you a dozen times in a row, I have to say you are part of an organization that does not have a real man leading or playing. I don’t care how much talent these rich kids have, I know 12 year old’s with more intestinal fortitude than this entire team will ever have.

A poster above mentioned that he thought the Royals would have been a threat to score 800-850 runs this season.

The Royals have only scored as many as 800 runs in a season 6 times in franchise history.

Years? 2000, 1999, 1979, 2003, 1977, & 1980. (879, 856, 851, 836, 822, & 809 runs, respectively)

In ’99 & ’00, the heart of the Royals order consisted of Beltran, Dye, Sweeney, and Damon. The fences at Kauffman stadium had yet to be moved back from when they were moved in, in 1995. ’nuff said. Almost every team offensive record that exists was set in one of these two seasons. Is it any wonder that Sweeney drove in a team record 144 runs in 2000 with Damon, Beltran, Dye & Randa hitting in front of him? Joe Randa was also in the middle of his best season as a Royal as well. Damon scored 136 runs all by himself! One hundred thirty-six!!! Even more than Wilson’s old 1980 record of 130 that I thought might go untouched for a VERY long time when he did THAT.

The ’77, ’79, and ’80 teams were among the best in team history. The Royals had the best record in baseball in 1977 and had a 16 game winning streak. The 1979 team got monster offensive years out of Brett, Wilson, Porter, & Otis. The best seasons of both Porter’s and Otis’ careers. The 1980 team was the American League champion and had the AL MVP on it.

2003? What can I say about that one? Nosotros Cremos, maybe? They played massively over their heads and had a Pythagorean W-L expectation of 78-84 and actually went 83-79, which is, I believe the largest such differential in team history.

My point is that characterizing this year’s team with ANY of those in terms of run scoring potential (save the ’03 team) is pretty far-fetched. Those teams, just from a hitting standpoint, are littered with a Cooperstown Hall-of-Famer, several of the team’s own Hall-of-Famers, and had stellar supporting casts around them, offensively, too. And they played in a more friendly hitter’s environment as well. Besides the fence issue mentioned before, the ’77, ’79′ & ’80 teams played on artificial turf, which made the stadium more of a hitters park because of the very fast track that afforded more ground balls getting through the infield, something that makes the accomplishments of the ’99 & ’00 teams all the more remarkable. If the stadium had had turf in those seasons, still………………..

Comparing this team to any of those teams isn’t looking at it very objectively. There is nothing in the track record of the players on this team that would have lead you to believe that such an explosion of offense would be possible, and, that’s what it would have been, too, an explosion. Even considering Cain’s or Perez’s injuries. They only scored 730 runs last year and lost the guy that was their leading hitter from last year and had a couple players (Gordon and Francoeur) have unprecedented seasons (neither of which are being reproduced in any way this season).

Some fall-off from 730 runs seemed like a possibility to me. And, it’s happened in big way, unfortunately.

This offense is on a pace to be historically bad. The Royals are on a pace to score 631 runs this season. If that holds, that would be the 5th worst total in franchise history throwing out strike seasons.

The Royals are last in the AL in home runs, last in walks drawn (by a ton), and have a below league average team OBP that they have shaved almost 20 points off of in the last month.

No power + few walks drawn + below league average team OBP = difficulties scoring runs. When you are scoring 3.86 RPG and you are giving up 4.15 RPG you are going to come out on the sort end of the stick more often than not, obviously.

Until if and when the Royals get over their insane organizational desire to obtain and cultivate players that do not get on base, nothing is going to change in this regard. This one issue, in and of itself, IMHO, is the one thing that makes me believe that current management, on the field or off, doesn’t “get” it, and the Royals, no matter how good their farm system, aren’t headed anywhere.

They get rid of players that they should have kept, that are now making significant contributions elsewhere, and keep guys they ought to be rid of. This has been going on in earnest now for over a decade. I mean, this is the only team in major league history to outright release a player that went on to throw a no-hitter or perfect game for another team! What kind of player personnel analysis is going with a team that does something like that? And this is a team that was and is hungry for starting pitching!

If Perez and Myers are on the scene shortly, it will help, but the problems certainly aren’t limited to the guys they’d be replacing. Sticking with my preseason prediction of 73-89, which is a touch better than their current Pythagorean projection, but, they are on an actual 67-95 pace, currently, and making me nervous about my prediction.

This is not a .500 club and the stats are backing me up, despite what all the Koolade drinkers seem to think, and, amazingly, there are a lot of them put there.