Pick a negative adjective and you can apply it to the 2026 Kansas City Royals. They’re awful. Terrible. Boring. Gutless. Embarrassing. They fail to do the big things, like scoring runs and preventing the other team from doing the same. They also fail to do the small things, like running the bases without making outs and avoiding crucial defensive errors when it matters most.
If that sounds too harsh, well, I promise you that it’s just what the statistics and the eye test bear out. At 35-52, the Royals
are on pace for just 65 wins. They have the worst record in the American League and the worst run differential in the American League; only the shambling corpse of the Colorado Rockies saves Kansas City from being the worst team with the worst run differential in the entirety of Major League Baseball.
Compounding these problems is the weight of expectations, as the Royals entered the season as contenders. The club itself had its sights set on making the playoffs one year after winning 82 games, two years after winning 86 and squeaking into the postseason. Pundits and fans expected good things, and so did the emotionless computers: PECOTA thought the Royals were an 84-win team, and ZiPS thought that the Royals would run it back as an 82-win team.
Kansas City’s response at each of the low points in the year has been to do nothing. A little over a month ago, I wrote that Royals leadership was asleep at the wheel. Despite a wide variety of potential moves available to them, they had chosen to do nothing–only eventually making the most cursory of changes to the lineup out of necessity. Since that point, the Royals have gone 13-18, further sliding down the slippery slope towards oblivion.
Except for the Royals, oblivion has not come. There has been no reckoning even as teams in similarly dire straights made changes. Most recently, the New York Mets fired their manager, Carlos Mendoza, after a 34-48 start. On the same day, the Los Angeles Angels fired their general manager, Perry Minasian, after a 34-49 start. They’re not the only ones, of course; others have paid a price for failing to meet expectations this year.
But not for the Royals. And on the first game of the homestand, we got another look into the reason why: they just don’t hold themselves to the standard that other teams hold themselves to. These few sentences of JJ Picollo’s interview provide some clear insight into that fact (emphasis mine):
“I know what this group is about,” Picollo said. “I know how they work. They’re very curious. They want answers. They want to try to find solutions to the questions we have. I know they’re prepared every day. And that’s all we can ask. At the end of the year, you take a look and say, ‘Is this really moving in the direction we want to go?’
“But right now, just keep having conversations with them, share what we’re seeing as a front office. Let them share concerns they have with us, so together we can be part of the answers with each other.”
A few caveats before digging in: Picollo here is talking about the coaching staff specifically, not the front office or the players. Additionally, there is a grain of salt you have to apply to these interviews: this is a PR play, and Picollo is not going to throw anybody under the bus publicly.
But with that out of the way…yikes!
Sports is simple: it’s entertainment. More winning, more entertainment. Less winning, less entertainment. And at the core is a social contract where if teams try hard to win games, fans will show up. If teams don’t try hard to win games, or if they’re really bad at it, fans stop showing up. Losing, therefore, is a very important part of the feedback loop because it ought to prompt teams to change things so they don’t lose fans.
For whatever reason, though, that part of the feedback loop is gone and is nowhere to be found. Losing just doesn’t stick. It isn’t a strong enough signal. It’s not even a signal that matters–to Picollo, what matters is effort. Are the Royals decision makers trying really hard? Are they curious? Are they prepared? He says it verbatim: “that’s all we can ask.”
That’s all we can ask? Really? I don’t know about any of you, but I don’t decide what to do with my evenings based on how hard any group of people tries or not. I decide based on how much joy any given activity gives me. Right now, the Royals give me, a person who spends who knows how many hours every year writing and thinking about them, no joy.
I don’t know what’s going on behind closed doors. But it doesn’t really matter what’s going on behind closed doors. Right now, it’s about the product on the field–which, objectively, sucks. Right now, it’s about what the Royals are doing about it–which, objectively, is nothing. Kansas City is trying to sell togetherness and solidarity when fans want competent baseball. The Royals should be asking more of themselves than trying really hard. They can ask more. They should ask more. The fans certainly are.
