KC Royals: Kansas City’s biggest mistakes of 2019

The KC Royals lost 103 games in 2019, a total impossible to amass without making countless mistakes. What were some of the club’s biggest miscues?

The KC Royals had one of their worst seasons in 2019. Entering just their fourth campaign after a World Series championship closed out trips to the Fall Classic in 2014 and ’15, the club lost over 100 games for the second straight year.

That the Royals would not be good in 2019 was expected. Immediate regression followed the club’s two successive World Series appearances–they went 82-80 in 2016, then 81-81 in 2017. There followed the inevitable free agency-fueled departure of KC’s championship core after ’17, a major factor in ’18’s 104 loss campaign. The club then failed to make significant improvements.

To be sure, the 2019 KC Royals played a lot of bad baseball; for excruciatingly long periods, pitchers didn’t pitch well and hitters didn’t get timely hits. But to lose almost 64% of the time, as the Royals did last season, requires more than poor play–mistakes not of the players’ making necessarily play a part.

Mistakes of management certainly marred the Royals’ second straight lost season. Pitchers were left in games too long, others were pulled too soon. Unsuccessful lineups survived far too long. Players brought aboard via ill-advised free agent signings continued to play long after the futility of those signings became obvious. And while some mistakes didn’t cause losses, they reflected poor decisions that could have been better.

Here are some of the club’s bigger 2019 mistakes.