Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across the MLB. Throughout the year, we ask questions of the most plugged-in
Kansas City Royals fans and fans across the country. Sign up here to participate in the weekly emailed surveys.Earlier this week, we asked who bore the most blame for the Royals becoming the “proud” owners of the American League’s worst record by the halfway point
As always, I find the results fascinating. To get this out of the way, the plurality blames the roster construction,
but that is among the smallest pluralities I’ve ever seen at just 37%. Poor Management got 27% of the blame, poor coaching got 23%, and the players only took 13% of the blame.
I’m not surprised to see management so high, but when I gave you the choice to separate the coaching out from the managing, I wondered if everyone might decide, actually, the baserunning, hitting, and defense were a greater problem than the lineups and bullpen usage. It was close, but many of you still think this is somehow Matt Quatraro’s fault. I said this in 2023, and I’ll say it again now: You cannot blame a manager for bad bullpen decisions when there are no good ones to be made. But the lineup stuff was and continues to be frustrating. I get that they’re missing many of their projected starters, but Salvador Perez batting fifth or sixth every night despite a .568 OPS is just completely incomprehensible to me.
I agree with the plurality, though, that the biggest issue that has caused the downfall of the 2026 Royals is roster construction. Where I suspect I disagree with many of you, though, is that I believe the roster construction problems should be laid at the feet of John Sherman and the rest of the ownership team far more than General Manager J.J. Picollo.
The Royals made exactly two major league free agent signings before the season, adding Lane Thomas and Starling Marte to the roster. They also made trades to bring in Nick Mears, Isaac Collins, and Matt Strahm. Obviously, the trade additions haven’t worked out the way that anyone had hoped. I do feel obligated to point out that Collins has carried an OBP over .330 in every month this year. If the 2025 Royals had had an outfielder playing at that level last year, they might have made the postseason.
But, honestly, the free agent signings have been about as good as you could have hoped considering that they cost a combined $6 million. Thomas is slumping a bit right now while playing nearly every day since the injury to Kyle Isbel, but you paid for roughly half a Win Above Replacement, and he’s on pace to be worth that. Starling Marte has been almost as valuable at 1/5 the cost. The problem is that the Royals only had $7 million to spend on free agents.
Now, that absolutely begs the question of whether the Royals could have reallocated that Jonathan India arbitration money elsewhere. But that’s similar to what Rob Refsnyder and Cedric Mullins got. Would the Royals be better with either of those guys on the team? (The answer is no.) I also wonder if there are different rules in place for keeping guys versus adding them, because the Royals have forked out money to keep guys like India, Seth Lugo, and Michael Wacha.
I think Picollo’s front office and the pitching coaching staff have a lot of questions to ask themselves about why exactly nearly every reliever this team has added for the past three years has turned into a roiling inferno. But when Picollo was given significant money to spend in an offseason, he added Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha, who have been key parts of the Royals being good, and Hunter Renfroe, who was really good in 2024 outside of April. Even last season’s addition of Carlos Estévez ended up working out really well for the club until the second year of the deal kicked in.
I’m not saying everyone outside of Sherman is blameless, but we’ve seen good results from all other aspects of the club when larger amounts of money have been involved. Even the extensions to Wacha and Lugo have mostly worked out. I know Lugo isn’t living up to hopes this year, but he also had pitched quite well for the first two months, and we can hope he will rebound after a rough June.
Anyway, good voting, everyone. Let me know what you think of these results in the comments!
These survey results are sponsored by FanDuel.
