2010 Kansas City Royals season in review
The 2010 Kansas City Royals never spent a day in first place, worse than that they never spent one day of the 2010 season with a better than .500 record. They ended up finishing last in the American League Central by 27 games. They did not have a winning record in any month the closest they came was a 13-14 record in June. They went 5-13 against the Minnesota Twins, and just 24-30 against the other teams in their division. They also only managed an 8-10 record in inter league play.
The Royals offense was able to push across 676 runs, and that was just 10th best among the 14 AL clubs. The offense was led by 1B Billy Butler and RF David Dejesus who both hit .318 for the year. Butler Billy hit 15 home runs and drove in 78 runs, while Dejesus hit 5 home runs and drove in 37 runs in just 91 games. Royals hitters struck out an American League high 905 times, and drew just 471 walks.
The news does not get any better on the pitching side of things. Their staff had an American League high 4.97 staff ERA. Of their starting five only Bruce Chen finished the season with a winning record. Not one of their starting pitchers, including Zach Greinke, finished with an ERA under four. That is a major problem. Their closer, Joakim Soria, did convert 43 saves and had an ERA of 1.78.
The problems of the Royals are directly tied to their payroll. They spent just south of 60 million dollars on payroll in 2010, and have just 37.8 million committed to payroll in 2011. Of course since they sold just only half their 2010 ticket inventory it becomes hard to argue for them to jack up the payroll, but I guarantee you this if they got some talent, and won some games the ticket sales would go way up.
Related Links:
- Kansas City Royals news and notes
- The Business of Major League Baseball
- Joshua Lobdell.com
