The Most Disappointing Royals Season? Part IV: 2004

The 1990s, particularly after the 1994 players' strike, saw the Royals slowly descend from a model organization to mediocrity to a laughingstock. This culminated in the 2002 season, when the Royals lost 100 games for the first time in the franchise's 34 seasons. The Royals then saw their best pitcher, Paul Byrd, go to Atlanta as a free agent after winning 17 games.

This made the 2003 season so amazing. I assume most of you are familiar with the details, but to briefly recap: the Royals began 2003 with nine straight wins on their way to a 16-3 record. After falling all the way back down to a 28-29 mark in early June, they rebounded to have a 7-game lead at the All-Star Break. They held on to first place into late August, then ran out of gas and finished seven games back, with an 83-79 record. It was their first winning season since 1994. Tony Pena won AL Manager of the Year, Angel Berroa won AL Rookie of the Year, and for the first time in years, the Royals--not the Chiefs--were the talk of the town.

To his credit, then-GM Allard Baird seemed to understand that the 2003 season really had been magical; the Royals had actually been outscored for the season, had benefited from playing a historically bad Tigers team 18 times, and somehow had only one pitcher (Darrell May) reach 10 wins. So Baird went to work, although as always with the Royals, he had a limited budget. Still, Baird signed free agents Matt Stairs, Tony Graffanino, Benito Santiago and, in an apparent coup, Juan Gonzalez.

Yep, 2004 looked promising. Sure, it would be tough--the Twins and White Sox both looked solid, and none of the pitchers who had contributed in 2003 had much of a track record. But Royals fans had been hearing about this kid named Greinke who was expected to make his debut that season, and become a star shortly after. Despite the loss of outfielder Raul Ibanez, the offense looked good with the offseason additions.

It didn't all fall apart right away. The most eagerly-awaited Opening Day in years saw the Royals win a thrilling, come-from-behind 9-7 game against the White Sox. KC scored 6 runs in the 9th inning, tying the game on a 3-run homer by Mendy Lopez, then winning on a walk-off 2-run shot by Carlos Beltran. It certainly looked like the magic of 2003 was carrying over into 2004.

After getting out to a 4-2 start to the season, things fell apart quickly. The Royals lost 12 of 15 games, ending April with a 7-14 record. Very few teams survive a month like that and go on to win a division title, but there was still a feeling of hope that they could climb back in the race; after all, it was only May 1.

Unfortunately, that was the day the Royals summoned a virtual unknown, Eduardo Villacis, to make a spot start at Yankee Stadium. Even for the most serious Royals fan, Villacis was a mystery. Heck, many of his new teammates were unfamiliar with him. And they barely had time to get acquainted. The Venezuelan righty gave up 2 runs in the 1st inning and 3 more in the 3rd before being pulled in the 4th. Those 3 1/3 innings would be his only appearance as a major leaguer. They would also be a neat metaphor for the Royals' 2004 season.

The losses continued to pile up and the odd things continued to happen. Pena had already tried to loosen up the troops by jumping into the shower, still in uniform, after a loss to the Twins. Now, after Villacis' Bronx bombing, Pena told the assembled media, "We are going to win the Central." This motivational ploy didn't work either; the Royals would lose 13 of the next 19 games. On May 21, Gonzalez was removed from a game against the A's and would be placed on the DL with a lower back injury, where he would stay for the rest of the season. First, the injury was said to be day-to-day, then a two-week deal, and then a season-ender.

One positive of the 2004 season was Greinke's debut, a solid start against the A's in Oakland. Zack was properly initiated into Royals baseball by his new teammates, as Jeremy Affeldt blew the save in the 9th, and then the Royals lost the game in the 11th. Hey, at least they scored 4 runs for him!

Another oddity...on June 6th, pitcher Jason Grimsley and first baseman Ken Harvey collided while trying to field a grounder. Actually, Harvey fielded the ball and prepared to throw home, but instead ended up socking Grimsley in the jaw as the pitcher raced to cover first. Although neither player was seriously hurt, they both laid on the Kauffman Stadium grass for several minutes and ended up going to the hospital for X-rays. Needless to say, the non-play ended up costing the Royals the game.

As the losses mounted, it became clear that Baird was going to have to trade Beltran, who would be a free agent at the end of the season. With the Royals' promising success in 2003, Baird had decided to hold on to the star center fielder to see if KC could make a run at the division title in 2004. And so, on June 24, the Royals traded Beltran to the Astros, part of a three-team deal that netted the Royals Mark Teahen, John Buck, and pitcher Mike Wood.

With the towel officially thrown in now, the losing continued, as the Royals closed July with 11 losses in 12 games. KC only won 7 games in July, ending the month at 21.5 games behind the Twins. August and September weren't much better, and the Royals broke the 100-loss barrier for the second time in three years in the final week of the season. The Royals ended up with a 58-104 record, an amazing and embarrassing departure from where the record was expected to be.

So what happened? Well, injuries were definitely a problem. KC used 58 players in 2004, which is still a club record (by comparison, in 2009, when the front office loved to use injuries as an excuse for the disappointing season, the team used 34 players). But the players who played the most games just weren't that good. Only six Royals played more than 100 games, and Mike Sweeney and Matt Stairs were the only ones of that group to post OPS+ numbers over 100. Gonzalez, the Royals' biggest offseason signing and a guy who was supposed to be an offensive cornerstone, only played 33 games and was held to a .767 OPS.

Still, the most disappointing position player of 2004 had to be Angel Berroa. Looking back, we know how badly his lack of plate discipline hurt his career. But in 2004, it seemed like he was undergoing a sophomore slump like none other, as his average dropped 25 points, his OBP fell 30 points, and his slugging percentage tumbled 66 points. And of course, this was the player who had the most plate appearances for the 2004 Royals. That explains a lot.

Also, the pitching was horrible, finishing with a league-worst 5.16 ERA, a league-low 25 saves, and a league-low 887 strikeouts, among other lowlights. The only starting pitcher to post and ERA+ over 100? Greinke, of course. Darrell May went 9-19 and complained he couldn't even get no-decisions as the bullpen repeatedly let inherited runners score.

After the dream season of 2003, 2004 was a nightmare. And even worse, it would set the stage for an even longer nightmare. From 2004-2006, the Royals would lose 310 games. Tony Pena quit in disgrace after a game in Toronto, fleeing to his native Dominican Republic to avoid testifying in the divorce hearing of a woman he was having an affair with (to this day, I think the real reason he quit was Berroa's inexplicable baserunning error that cost the Royals that game--I think poor Tony just couldn't stand it anymore). He would be replaced by Buddy Bell, who would famously say, "I never say it can't get worse," a perfect summation of the Kansas City Royals from about 1995 to today.

Baird would be fired in 2006, after being allowed to twist in the wind for a while by David Glass, who essentially said publicly he was pulling the trigger, then took almost a month to do so. Although Baird was pretty much a failure as GM, he seemed to be a decent man who deserved better. And he did draft Greinke, Billy Butler and Alex Gordon, among others, along with rescuing Raul Ibanez off the scrap heap.

In retrospect, 2004 probably shouldn't have been such a surprise. Well, maybe the amount of losing would be considered surprising, but it seems obvious now that the 2004 Royals were really not that good. I would say they proved that by hitting 100 losses in the next two seasons. But after the magical summer of 2003, 2004 was supposed to be the continuation of a Royal renaissance. Instead, it turned out to be a six-month-long train wreck.

The Most Disappointing Royals Season? Part III: 1990

It's common to hear that the Royals have "stunk," or "been mired in futility," or however you want to say it, since 1985. Of course, that's not really true. The Royals teams of the late 1980s were still solid ballclubs who just couldn't get over the hump.

The AL West was up for grabs until the Oakland A's dynasty rose up in 1988, but the Royals still had hope. After all, they still had plenty of star power: George Brett was winding down his Hall of Fame career, but would still have enough left to win a batting title in 1990. Bret Saberhagen was dominant enough to win a second Cy Young Award in 1989. Veteran links to the "glory days" like Willie Wilson and Frank White shared the field with up-and-coming stars like Mike Macfarlane, Kevin Seitzer, Kurt Stilwell, Tom Gordon, and Jeff Montgomery. And the Royals also had possibly the most famous athlete in the country, Bo Jackson.

It must be hard for kids today to comprehend a Royals player appearing in national TV commercials, writing an autobiography with a distinguished journalist like Dick Schaap, having his own video game, or any of the other things Bo accomplished off the field. For a time, the Royals had the coolest baseball player on the planet.

Meanwhile, the Oakland A's were assembling a dynasty of sorts, running away with the AL West in 1988, then outlasting the Royals by 7 games in 1989. People who think the Royals have been horrible for 24 straight years now should check out the '89 edition, which had the second-best record in the league. Unfortunately, they were stuck in a division with the league's best team.

Two things were in play here. First, the A's and Royals had a bit of a rivalry going on. There was the minor detail that the A's had jerked Kansas City baseball fans around for 15 years, then bolted town right before the team finally began winning. Then, the Royals ended up chasing those good A's teams in the division standings every year before breaking through with a division title in 1976. Several mediocre years by the A's in the late '70s and early '80s had dimmed the rivalry somewhat, but it had a bit of a resurgence once the A's got good again.

The other factor was the health of Royals founder and owner Ewing Kauffman. Beloved by his employees and by the fans of Kansas City, Mr. K turned 73 before the end of the 1989 season. Who knew how many more years he might have to win a second World Series.

So, after the 1989 season, the Royals went shopping in the free-agent supermarket. For younger Royals fans, it may be tough to imagine a Royals free-agent signing that is not a lower-light like, say, Kyle Farnsworth. No, the Royals were going after big names.

On December 7, 1989, the Royals signed starting pitcher Storm Davis, taking him away from their rivals in Oakland. On December 11, the Royals pulled off an even bigger coup, signing relief pitcher Mark Davis, the NL Cy Young Award winner (this meant the 1990 Royals would make baseball history by having both reigning Cy Young winners). And on December 15, the Royals traded starting pitcher Charlie Leibrandt to the Braves for Gerald Perry, intending to install him at first base and move Brett to DH (he had moved from third to first a few years earlier to make room for Seitzer).

In those simpler days, most baseball fans (myself included) didn't understand or even know about the many advanced stats we take for granted now. So we Royals fans were excited that Storm Davis had won 19 games in 1989. We were excited that Mark Davis had had 44 saves in 1989. And we were excited that Perry had hit .300 in 1988, even though he'd fallen off in 1989. We didn't realize that Storm's 19 wins came despite a 4.36 ERA and a 1.506 WHIP, or that the A's averaged almost 6 runs a game when he pitched. We didn't realize that saves were an overrated stat, and that the Royals probably already had two better relief pitchers in Montgomery and Steve Farr. We didn't realize that Perry's offense was almost devoid of power, a serious shortcoming for a 1B/DH type.

So we all went into the 1990 season expecting a summer-long battle with the A's and the also-formidable-looking Angels for first place. It would begin with an Opening Day battle against Baltimore on ESPN.

I remember racing into the house after school to catch the end of the game. It had been a seesaw affair, and the game was tied at 6 in the 11th. Montgomery was starting his third inning of work. Even at age 14, I thought this was odd. The Royals had spent all that money on Mark Davis, and they wouldn't use him? Monty walked the leadoff hitter, then gave up two singles and the lead run. Then, and only then, did Mark Davis enter the game. When the Royals went quietly in the bottom of the inning, the season was off to a bad start.

It got worse; the Royals had a six-game losing streak in late April, then won a game, then lost four in a row. At 6-16, they were already 10.5 games out. They would not get within 10 games of the division lead for the rest of the season. In one month, the promise of a pennant race had gone up in smoke. KC would end up with a 75-86 record, a mere 27.5 games out of first.

Those offseason acquisitions sure worked out well, didn't they? Storm Davis went 7-10 with a 4.74 ERA and only gave the Royals 112 innings. Mark Davis was a total disaster, going 2-7 with a 5.11 ERA and only 6 saves. Things got so bad that, in desperation, the Royals let him start a couple of game in late July (he got bombed in those games, too). Perry hit .254/.313/.361 for an OPS+ of 90. Of course, there was plenty of blame to go around besides those three. Bret Saberhagen continued his career pattern of good year, bad year, as injuries limited him to only 20 starts. God bless Frank White for all he did for the Royals, but in his last season, he put up a 58 OPS+ in 82 games. The 1990 Royals weren't a bad team, just mediocre. But after the hype of the preceding winter, it was a very disappointing season.

The disappointment would continue into the offseason. Frank White would retire after the season. Willie Wilson would sign a free-agent deal with the A's. And in January of 1991, Bo Jackson would injure his hip while engaged in his "hobby," playing running back for the Los Angeles Raiders. With his athletic ability in doubt, the Royals would release Bo in March of 1991. His hip would eventually require replacement, and while he was able to come back and play baseball, he was never the same combination of power and speed.

The Royals would scrape along near the bottom of the AL West for a couple more seasons. It would not be until 1993 that they would be contenders again. Even then, they were only fringe contenders. Then the 1994 strike hit, and the franchise began its decline. So 1989 still stands as the last time KC reached 90 wins in a season. And 1990 stands as the beginning of what is now a two-decade struggle.

Most Disappointing Royals Season? Part II: 1986

If you're interested enough in the Royals to be reading this, I imagine you know all the details about 1985. Of course, the Royals won their one (and only?) World Series title that year. It was the culmination of 17 years of Royals baseball, and the end of a decade's worth of postseason frustration. So perhaps a hangover of sorts was inevitable. But I'm sure no Royals fan imagined the season going awry in the way that it did.

The Royals followed up their 91-71 championship season* with a 76-86 record in 1986. That put them in third place, 16 games behind California. Heck, the usually (in the 1980s, anyway) mediocre Texas Rangers were able to finish second that year.

*History seems to have determined the Royals really weren't that good in 1985, just lucky. Well, they did win 91 games, although they outperformed their Pythagorean record by five games. So I suppose they were a bit lucky, but I would say a low-scoring team with a very good pitching staff would be a good candidate to seem lucky--they are likely to win more close, low-scoring games. Were they as good as the Blue Jays and Cardinals, the teams they beat in the postseason? Probably not, but they managed to get hot at the right time. And they did come back twice from 3-1 deficits. Don't let anyone kid you--the 1985 Royals were a good team.

The Royals brought back essentially the entire 1985 team for an encore. The pitching staff that had been so good in 1984 and 1985 was not filled with old-timers, although some of the core position players were entering the final phase of their careers. So what happened?

The Royals played basically .500 ball for the first three months of the season. That was nothing new for the mid-'80s Royals, though. In fact, through 72 games, the 1985 and 1986 teams had identical 37-35 records. The difference, of course, is that in 1985 the team got hot and stayed that way. In 1986, the Royals got to 37-35, then suffered through an 11-game losing streak in late June and early July. Then came the All-Star Break.

The 1986 All-Star Game should have been a celebration for the Royals and their fans. George Brett and Frank White were both selected as reserves, and of course Dick Howser was the AL manager, since his team had won the league the previous year. White ended up hitting a home run in the game--the eventual winning run for the AL--off Mike Scott of the Houston Astros, who was having a season for the ages and pitching in front of his home fans in the Astrodome.

But something was wrong. Howser seemed distracted and forgetful. Players thought he looked tired. Royals GM John Schuerholz insisted Howser go see a doctor. Soon after the All-Star Game, the diagnosis was in: Howser had a brain tumor. Howser's right-hand man, Mike Ferraro, took over managerial duties for the final 74 games.

Under these circumstances, a disappointing season was all but certain. The long losing streak had pretty much knocked them out of contention (8.5 games back and in fourth place when it ended, with 79 games left) and now their manager, the man who had inspired them and led them to two division titles and a World Series win in the previous two seasons, was fighting for his life in a hospital. Actually, the Royals played roughly .5oo baseball after the losing streak ended, but they could never really get in gear or put together a hot streak.

Hoswer would attempt a brief comeback in spring training in 1987, but had to give it up after only one day. Three months later, less than a year after his diagnosis, he passed on. He was only 51.

So 1986 saw two of the biggest reasons the Royals have not made a postseason appearance since that magical October of 1985. First, Howser's untimely death cut short what might have been a very good managerial career. In one full season with the Yankees and four with the Royals, he had won three division titles and a World Series. Yes, managers probably do not make that much difference in a team's record, but after Howser, the Royals began a managerial procession of retreads (Billy Gardner, Buddy Bell), former Royals from the "glory days" (John Wathan, Hal McRae), possibly crazy people (Bob Boone, Tony Pena Sr.), and uninspiring Eeyore types (Tony Muser, Buddy Bell). With Howser still in the dugout, perhaps some of the second- and third-place finishes over the next few years would become division titles. We'll never know, of course.

Also, after the 1986 season, the Royals traded away two young pitchers to try to fortify an offense that had been next to last in the league in runs scored. First, they sent Scott Bankhead to Seattle for outfielder Danny Tartabull. That move worked out well for the Royals. Second, they sent David Cone to the Mets for catcher Ed Hearn. That move would haunt the Royals for years. Had Cone been a part of the Royals in the late '80s and early '90s, perhaps they could have won another division title or two. And they might not have signed Mark Davis and Storm Davis as free agents after the 1989 season. That may or may not be foreshadowing for the next installment of this series...

Most Disappointing Royals Season? Part I: 1983

Before I start, this bit of genius just has to be pointed out: Dayton Moore vs. Insanity Wolf. Go on, read it. I'll wait.

OK. As I said before, I really started following the Royals in 1983. So I suppose that season wasn't that much of a disappointment to me--I didn't know any better. But I imagine to someone who had been a Royals fan prior to that season, 1983 was a real bummer of a summer, as Ned Flanders might say.

The 1982 Royals went 90-72 and were in the division race all the way to the end. In fact, they were tied for the division lead on Sept. 19, then got swept in a three-game series by the Angels, who ended up winning the division by three games. They suffered no major losses in the offseason (except trading a minor leaguer named Cecil Fielder to Toronto for outfielder Leon Roberts--ugh). So although I don't really remember it, I assume the Royals were expected to contend in 1983.

Of course, that didn't happen. Well, it did somewhat. On August 10, the Royals were five games behind Chicago despite being only 54-55 on the year. At a time when the Royals needed to get hot, it was instead the White Sox who caught fire, going 39-12 the rest of the way and starting my lifelong disdain for the Pale Hose. The Royals ended up in second place, but were under .500 at 79-83 and 20 games behind Chicago.

So what happened? Looking at the stats from 1982 to 1983, I think it was a combination of key players getting old in a hurry and injuries taking down the staff ace. Plus, apparently some other important players had a drug problem...more on that shortly.

The '83 season was the last year in a Royals uniform for one of the best players in team history, Amos Otis. After hitting .286 with 11 homers and 88 RBIs in 125 games in 1982, AO could only manage .261, 4 and 41 in 98 games in 1983. One thing I regret as a Royals fan is that I did not get to see Otis play in his prime--I think he would have been fun to watch. But in 1983, he was struggling.

On the pitching side, Larry Gura went from an 18-12 mark in '82 to a league-leading 18 losses in '83. His ERA jumped almost a full run, from 4.03 to 4.90, while his K/BB ratio went from 98:64 to 57:76. Yep, he walked almost 20 more than he struck out. And still the Royals let him start 31 games and pitch 200 innings. Gura would have a slight bounceback in 1984, going 12-9 despite an unsightly 5.18 ERA. But he was essentially done after 1982, and the Royals couldn't make up for it elsewhere--the young pitchers who would be an important part of the 1984 and 1985 titles just weren't quite ready.

The Royals may have been able to absorb Gura's decline had Dennis Leonard pitched all year. Although Gura got the Opening Day start, I think Leonard would have been considered the staff ace after winning 20 games three times in his eight previous full seasons. But on May 28, his career was derailed when he ruptured his patellar tendon while pitching to Cal Ripken. Leonard would make a valiant comeback and pitch again for the Royals in 1985 and 1986, but his injury helped torpedo the Royals' 1983 season.

Finally, the thing I imagine the 1983 season is most remembered for actually happened after the season. In mid-October, outfielders Willie Wilson and Jerry Martin, first baseman Willie Aikens and pitcher Vida Blue were arrested and charged with misdeameanors related to possession of cocaine. Blue had been released by the Royals in August, but the other three were still on the roster at the time. Martin became a free agent after the season and ended up with the Mets; while Aikens would be traded to the Blue Jays for Jorge Orta, who of course was involved in perhaps the most famous play in franchise history. Wilson would be suspended for the 1984 season by then-commissioner Bowie Kuhn, but on appeal that was reduced to the first month-and-a-half of the '84 campaign. All four players served 81 days in federal prison.

At the time, I'm sure this was a big scandal, at least as big as it could be without the prevalence of ESPN and 24-hour news channels, and without the existence of websites, to let us know how these men had destroyed our innocence. As it turned out, cocaine was a widespread problem in baseball, and let's face it, in the early '80s there were a lot of cocaine problems in all of society. So thankfully, this episode is more or less a footnote in baseball history, although it is a bigger part of Royals history.

Out of the ashes of the 1983 season, though, the Royals would win the division in 1984, and of course win it all in 1985. One thing about the '83 season, it gave the Royals a chance to start clearing out some of the veterans who had starred on the great teams of the late '70s. Youngsters like Saberhagen, Jackson, Gubicza, Motley, Sheridan, Balboni and Leibrandt would move into important roles and the Royals would quickly reap the benefits.