Why the Kansas City Royals Suck

Right now in the world of sports, there is only one franchise that could trump Major League Baseball's Kansas City Royals for the dubious title of Worst Team in Sports; and that is my beloved New York Knicks of the NBA. I won't go into the Knicks because it's way, way too painful (plus, I've already written about the severity of their issues). In the world of Major League Baseball, however, there is no franchise that compares to horrendous Kansas City Royals.

If the Royals keep up this hideous pace they will make a run at the 1962 New York Mets' mark of futility, the Major League record for losses in a season; the Metropolitans went 40-120 in 1962. Forty-five games into the 2006 MLB campaign, the Kansas City Royals were an ugly 10-35; the second worst record to start a season since the 1930's (in 1988, the Baltimore Orioles were 9-36 and finished 54-107).

The Kansas City Royals have an astonishing team ERA of 6.27, the worst in all of Major League Baseball by far (The Orioles are second to last with a 5.54 mark). Until very recently, they had a lame duck GM whom ownership threatened to fire for months but never did (a few days ago they replaced Allard Baird with Atlanta Braves assistant GM Dayton Moore- a step in the right direction). The fact that ownership let Baird sit for as long as he did while they made offhand remarks about his job security and the horrible work that he'd done is down right disgraceful.

But, for what it's worth, Baird did do a miserable job. Since Major League Baseball started their revenue sharing programs, the Kansas City Royals had often been criticized for pocketing the shared money coming in and not putting it back out onto the field. Eventually, they took these comments to heart, and in the 2005 off-season they went out signed a bunch of free agents. They did this with no rhyme or reason whatsoever. Here's a list of their moves:

Mark Grudzielanek - signed for $4 million a year - GRADE: B+
Grudzielanek was probably their best pickup. Though he's not young, he's a valuable guy to have any team and he's hitting over .320 this year.