Putting the KC Royals' massive improvement in historical perspective

The KC Royals are on pace for an extraordinary season-to-season improvement. That’s obvious, especially less than a week away from the trade deadline. What may be less obvious is how that improvement ranks historically. Unlike other franchise records, the 2024 Royals are virtually guaranteed to obliterate the franchise record for season-to-season improvement, and stand a very good chance of recording one of the most impressive performance jumps in the entire game’s nearly 150-year history.

The Royals have already matched their win total for all of 2023. Their .541 winning percentage puts them on pace for an 88-win season, a total that would be 32 games better than one year ago. The 1971 Royals set the franchise record for season-to-season improvement, excluding pandemic or strike-shortened seasons. That club won 85 games, 20 more than in 1970.

The KC Royals are chasing league history in 2024

If the Royals continue winning at their present pace, they will hit 76 victories – marking a 20-game upgrade,, against the Cleveland Guardians on Aug. 26. That would give them more than a full month to improve on that season-to-season improvement.

The potential for a 32-game step-up from last season on this one is historically extraordinary. Considering seasons of approximately equal length, only six teams in baseball history have recorded that level of quick improvement…and three of those six are compromised by outside factors.

Here’s a look at the 10 greatest season-to-season improvements in victories, again setting aside seasons shortened by a strike, war, COVID, or schedule expansion.

Based on that table, the Royals are on pace to equal the sixth-greatest turnaround in the game’s history. But as significant as that sounds, it minimizes the achievement. Three of the six teams that might rank ahead of Kansas City on this list by season's end had external help that diminished their accomplishment.

The 1899 Superbas/Dodgers and Browns/Cardinals both owed their upgrades to syndicate baseball. In the late 1890s, it was common practice for the same men to own more than one major league team. The Dodgers owners also owned the Baltimore franchise, and the St. Louis owners owned the Cleveland franchise.

Between the 1898 and 1899 seasons, both owners transferred the contracts of their best players to Brooklyn and to St. Louis, creating super-teams while leaving their other franchise competitively hopeless. That’s why the team that would come to be known as the Dodgers improved from 54 wins in 1898 to 101 (and a pennant) in 1899, and why the St. Louis team improved from 39 wins to 84.

Obviously, that sort of thing would not be permitted today.

The Red Sox improvement is also artificially enhanced, albeit for far different reasons. The 1945 Boston roster had been stripped of much of its talent by World War II; seven regulars, including Hall of Famers Ted Williams and Bobby Doerr, along with three of the team’s top four pitchers, were at war. When all of that talent returned for the 1946 season, the Sox soared from 71 wins to 104 and won the AL pennant.

The 32-game improvement of the 1891 Pirates also deserves an asterisk. Between the 1890 and 1891 seasons, one of the three existing major leagues ceased to function, and the Pittsburgh owners raced to sign several of the premier available players, violating a league understanding in the process. (That “pirating” of players is how the club came to be called the Pirates in the first place.)

The 1999 Arizona Diamondbacks with a 35-game improvement, the 1989 Orioles with a 33-game advance, and the 1936 Boston Bees, now the Atlanta Braves, are the only teams whose pace of improvement surpasses that of the 2024 Royals.

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