<\/p>\n
The best month of June compiled by a major-league rookie came from a left-hander in Kansas City.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The best month of June any second<\/i>-year big-leaguer compiled came from a left-hander in Kansas City.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Jac Caglianone is the latter, Carter Jensen the former. They totaled 61 and 56 bases respectively, tops in their age groups.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
That\u2019s everything.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Or at least it was supposed to be.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a strangeness to this Royals season, and if you\u2019ve been in town a bit, you already know it\u2019s not simply that they\u2019ve failed to live up to expectations.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It\u2019s why<\/i> they\u2019ve fallen so short.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Before the season, you easily could have labeled Caglianone and Jensen as the predictive keys to their success. I did. The Royals did, too, even while avoiding publicly applying pressure to the youngest two bats in the lineup. If only those guys would hit, they\u2019d have something, right?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Well, those two have been on fire. Caglianone hit nine home runs last month, one shy of the American League lead. Jensen just ended a 20-game hitting streak.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
So why do the Royals stink? How do they still occupy last place in the AL standings?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Turns out, the guys they didn\u2019t think they needed to worry about are those they actually needed to worry about. The players who elevated the expectations \u2014 who propelled them to back-to-back winning seasons for the first time in a decade \u2014 are the same players who have failed to live up to their own standard.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u2022 Salvador Perez is hitting a career-low .201, getting on base in just 24.1% of his plate appearances and slugging .327, some 76 points lower than he\u2019s slugged in any previous year. His fWAR (Fangraphs<\/a>\u2019 WAR stat) is -1.6. The second worst in baseball is -0.6. He has never finished with a negative WAR.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u2022 Maikel Garcia has an OPS of .693, more than 100 points shy of the mark he reached last year. He\u2019s on pace for six home runs a year after breaking out for 16, tracking toward a 2.8 fWAR season one year after ranking 14th in baseball at 5.6.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u2022 Vinnie Pasquantino<\/a> is hitting .224 and slugging .350. On the injured list now, he has six home runs and 10 doubles after posting 32 home runs and 33 doubles in 2025.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u2022 Cole Ragans, the club\u2019s opening day starter three consecutive years, has pitched just 35 1\/3 innings, posting a 4.84 ERA before undergoing elbow surgery Wednesday<\/a> that ended his season.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u2022 After leading the American League with 42 saves last year, Carlos Est\u00e9vez has made one appearance, an outing so bad that it accounted for -0.5 WAR all by itself.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u2022 Matt Strahm, who had a 2.71 ERA in middle relief for the Phillies over the past three seasons combined, has a 5.53 ERA. Measuring by fWAR, he has been the least valuable reliever in baseball in 2026.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u2022 The most reliable arm in the Royals\u2019 bullpen for the previous 18 months, Lucas Erceg leads Major League Baseball with six blown saves.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Heading into the season, that\u2019s the leadoff hitter, the No. 3 hitter, the cleanup hitter, the opening day ace, the closer and the top setup man.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n All were significant parts of why the Royals were competitive. All of them are among the reasons the Royals are not anymore.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Royals\u2019 current standing isn\u2019t so much about what they did or didn\u2019t acquire in the offseason. It\u2019s not about who did or didn\u2019t develop.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n They haven\u2019t been able to dance with the players who drove them to ball.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n How do you assess that? Were they wrong to bank on players who cashed in their past opportunities?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n That\u2019s the most difficult part of this exercise, but also the most instrumental to the Royals\u2019 future \u2014 asking themselves if their beliefs were warranted.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u2022 If they should have foreseen not only their 36-year-old catcher\u2019s drop in production, but even a significant one.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u2022 If Garcia\u2019s breakout was more anomaly than a new norm.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u2022 If a pitcher who had two Tommy John surgeries earlier in his career might confront another.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u2022 If two back-end relievers whose expected ERA (based on hard-hit rate and launch angle) was more than a full run higher than their actual ERA, they might encounter a reversal of fortune.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It\u2019s not only healthy to be skeptical but mandatory, and this season ought to either remind or reinforce the Royals of that.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But that combination stacks together the most skeptical of outlooks \u2014 and even if you began there, it still would have been hard to predict them all<\/i> to unfold.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This Royals season would be easier to assess \u2014 though still not easier to digest \u2014 if the answer was simply that this group isn\u2019t good enough. Maybe that\u2019s still true. But it has<\/i> been good enough, and it\u2019s not like the timing of that statement\u2019s truth \u2014 2024 and 2025 \u2014 is from a completely different era.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t built on hope. It was built on recent success.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The difficult but required evaluation will be to figure out why it wasn\u2019t repeatable. The players. The coaches. The processes. Whatever it might be.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Royals general manager J.J. Picollo said he doesn\u2019t plan to make in-season coaching staff changes<\/a>, though the fuller context must include that he also said this: \u201cAt the end of the year, you take a look and say, \u2018Is this really moving in the direction we want go?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n That\u2019s the relevant question.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It served as his response about the coaching staff.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But it applies across the board.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n