Nine-Hundred eighty-five days after they popped champagne in Queens, 829 days after their ring ceremony in Kansas City, and — perhaps most astonishingly — just 346 days after they owned a playoff spot as the most recent non-waiver trade deadline passed the 2018 Royals are an abomination.
They are on pace for 116 losses, which would be the second most of any team in the last 50 years. Their rotation is a mess, the bullpen spotty, the hitting anemic.
To be fair, it is not unusual for World Series champions to fall. The Giants lost 98 games three years after their 2014 title.