It’s Friday, usually the day after my day to do the game recap. They didn’t win because they did’t play, but I have yet to write a winning game recap this season. Well, I won’t be writing a losing one next week – they’re off again on Thursday.
As such, I’m feeling a little grouchy. Okay, more than a little. It’s cloudy outside, it’s in the 60s the day before most pools open, the Timberwolves are out of the playoffs and miles behind the Spurs and Thunder, I’m currently in a reading funk, there’s no
new episode of Widow’s Bay (my new fave show, which you should totes watch) until next week, and oh the Royals are awful.
Yes, awful. They’re losing a ton of games, and they’re not even fun to watch. Bad pitching, bad hitting, bad baserunning (okay, atrocious baserunning), and bad defense. To boot, they have a bad manager and a bad front office.
Outside of Bobby Witt Jr., there’s not really a reason to watch this team. It’s a collective group of disappointments.
But what player has been the biggest disappointment?
I have five candidates—three everyday players and two starting pitchers—for the offending dishonor, and at the end, Dear Reader, you’ll get to decide via vote. I’m taking these guys in alphabetical order. Bear witness.
Jac Caglianone
Jac is the only one of the five candidates with a positive bWAR, which is currently at 0.8. The 23-year-old right fielder looks better than he did last year, but that’s a low bar. He’s still striking out entirely too much (30%!) while his on-base percentage is sub-optimal. Luck seems to be on his side, too, as he’s hitting .344 (as compared to .172 last year) on balls in play.
Despite a couple of bloop singles last night, he looks horrible against lefties. For the year, he’s slashing .205/.225/.333 against southpaws with only three extra-base hits. His last at-bat against the Red Sox ended with the expected, an ugly whiff against the lefty Jovani Moran.
As noted, he does have a positive WAR, and he has improved over his trainwreck of a rookie season. But he’s still not tearing it up, he’s not the power threat the Royals need him to be, and seems to take personally every out he makes. Add in that the guy taken right after him in the 2024 draft is rocking it across the state, and yeah, Jac’s leaving a bit to be desired.
Noah Cameron
The Royals would not have finished 2025 with a winning record were it not for Noah Cameron. With the pitching staff injured, maligned, or otherwise ineffective, Cameron sparkled during his rookie season, finishing 4th in the American League Rookie of the Year voting as he went 9-7 with a 2.99 ERA across 24 starts and 138.1 innings pitched.
It’s been a quick, precipitous fall in 2026 for the local kid.
Cameron’s started all eight of his appearances this season, but his ERA’s jumped to 5.40. To his credit, Cameron has actually lowered his FIP and increased his strikeout rate but he’s also walking more batters and surrendering 10.6 hits per nine innings, an increase of over three hits per nine from last year.
His biggest culprit are the balls hit in play against him. Last year batters slashed .214/.279/.361 against him with over 41% of batted balls being hit on the ground. This season, those numbers are much worse for Cameron. Now, batters are lighting him up to the tune of .287/.337/.468. Groundballs have decreased by nearly 11% while hard-hit balls have increased over 6%—from 37.4% to 43.8%. Line drives are up 9%.
It’s great that Cameron remains durable while the pitching staff takes some hits, but with a fully healthy staff, he’s probably relegated to the bullpen.
Vinnie Pasquantino
Strangeness is that Vinnie is struggling so badly while madness is that whoever fills out the lineup card—and I have my doubts that it’s Quatraro 100% of the time—keeps putting him in the middle of the order.
Vinnie’s struggles feel more than him being a slow starter. Not only does he look frustrated out on the diamond—which is understandable—he looks lost. Is he pressing? I mean, I get it if he is. He’s supposed to be one of the team leaders, and it’s hard to lead with an OPS 28% below league average. Is he hurt? What’s up with him?
Whatever the reason, Pasquantino, 28 and arbitration-eligible for the next two years, is having the worst year of his career when the Royals obviously need to him to have…not the worst year of his career. Of the three batters on this list, I’m most confident of Vinnie to snap out of it, but time’s running out for that to make much of a difference.
Salvador Perez
Did Salvy’s tweet, or X post, about not needing a mental breather sour him to anyone else? I lost not a small amount of respect for him when he used social media to express his disagreement with getting an off day. That type of exchange needs to occur behind closed doors, not in the open.
Aside from that, I went into Perez at length when I posited some ways for the Royals to handle their aging slugger. He’s had two multi-hit games since then with a pair of homers and three walks. And yet, his OPS+ is 77 (23% league average) and he still looks like he’s stuck in cement.
Barring injury, he’ll undoubtedly pass George Brett’s franchise record for career home runs this season. That may be his, and the team’s, only highlight of 2026.
Cole Ragans
I wanted to avoid players on the IL as much as possible, which is why I didn’t list Jonathan India, who’s out for the year, or Carlos Estevez, who barely pitched.
Ragans is different, though. He’s already pitched a fair amount this season and should have the chance to pitch plenty more.
In 2024, his first full season with the Royals, Ragans looked like a budding ace, a pitcher who has the stuff that could someday win him the Cy Young. Injuries derailed his 2025, but it’s been ineffectiveness that’s curtailed his 2026.
The culprits: walks, fly balls, and home runs. Working in reverse, Ragans is allowing home runs at the worst rate of his career, giving them up 6.6% of the time, which is almost double his previous worst mark. Batters are slugging .488 against him, also the worst of his career, and by far the worst during his time in Kansas City. It’s up over 100 points from last year!
Related, his fly ball percentage has jumped from 27% last year to 37.3% this year. Perhaps most concerning, though, is his walk rate: Ragans is walking 15.2% of the batters he faces as compared to 7.8% last year and 8.8% in 2024.
Hopefully he’s corrected himself during his time on the IL.
Alright, Readers, time for you to vote: what Royals player has been the biggest disappointment so far in 2026?
