Hoping Not to Repeat 1986

Right now, the only thing 1986 and 2016 have in common is that they are the seasons that came after the Kansas City Royals won the World Series. This column in no way is meant to imply that the 2016 Royals will follow their cousins of thirty years prior into a dismal ten games under .500 season. I mean, there is no way this group is going to fall 15 games off their 2015 campaign, right?  RIGHT???!!

I was going to write that the 2015 Royals were a much better team than the 1985 champions, but then I remember that George Brett was on that team and Bret Saberhagen and Frank White and Willie Wilson…you get the picture. I grew up in those times and while the ’85 crew was good, even then, the educated (elite?) Royals’ fans would by and large tell you that the 1977 team and maybe even the 1976 and 1980 crews were probably better teams.

The intent here is not to get into comparing the 2015 Royals to previous good (great) squads from the past (although that might be fun), but instead to point out that a team just months removed from winning a title can suddenly, well, not be winners anymore.

The 1986 Royals looked very much like the champions of the previous year. They swapped out Pat Sheridan for Rudy Law as the fourth (third?) outfielder, Jamie Quirk took over the backup catching duties from John Wathan and Angel Salazar for Onix Concepcion as the other half of the shortstop combo with Buddy Biancalana, but everyone else returned.

Times were different back then when it came to pitching: starter heavy, just four or five relievers, but the pitching staffs were very similar.  Mike Jones and Joe Beckwith were gone, replaced by Scott Bankhead and Steve Farr.  Dennis Leonard, a bit player on the 85 squad, was a major player in 1986, but the staff was basically the same (Danny Jackson started the year on the disabled list, not starting a game until May).

As far as baseball goes, the 1986 Royals were essentially the same team as the 1985 Royals.  Not unlike how the 2016 team is pretty much the same group of guys who won the World Series last October.

The Royals of 1986 even started off the season against a New York team, albeit the Yankees, dropping of two of three in the Bronx.  After winning four of the next five, Kansas City then lost seven of their next ten contests and muddled around a few games below .500 for the rest of April and May. A late May/early June run of eight wins in nine contests, pushed KC to three games over .500 on June 6th, and they were just one-half game out of first in the American League West. Just two games over .500, but only two and half games back on June 26th, the Royals dropped eleven straight games and never recovered.

George Brett, who had started at third in every game to that point, went down with an injury on July 1st and by then, right field had become a revolving door.  When Bo Jackson debuted in right on September 2nd with the Royals 15 games out and 12 games under .500, he was the sixth player to start at that position.

Still, offensively, the individual Royals really did not fall off as much as you might think.  Balboni hit 29 home runs and still could not get on base, but that was not all that different than the previous season. Brett was excellent, but not MVP worthy as he was in his huge 1985 campaign.  Kansas City did not get production of note from shortstop or right field, but had not really done so in 1985, either. Hal McRae, who was in decline in 1985, got old in 1986 and split time with Jorge Orta at designated hitter.

On the mound, Dan Quisenberry was not ‘Quiz’ anymore, or maybe he was and the Royals just got tired of it. He shared closing duties with Bud Black (who started opening day, but only three other times that year) and Steve Farr. Bret Saberhagen began his odd year good even year bad odyssey. While Danny Jackson and Mark Gubicza were improved, Charlie Liebrant added almost a run and one-half to his earned run average. Dennis Leonard started 30 games, but was no longer THE Dennis Leonard.

Of course, perhaps the biggest and maybe most impactful event of the year was Dick Howser stepping down as manager after 88 games due to brain cancer.  While Mike Ferraro actually had a better record, one has to wonder the impact of Howser’s illness might have had on the team, possibly even prior to the diagnosis. It was a truly tragic thing and certainly bigger than the game.

In the end, however, when one examines the 1985 and 1986 teams side by side, the differences are not huge in either players or performance. Yes, having George Brett play 124 games instead of 155 – and some of those playing hurt – certainly had an impact. The pitching regressed a tick and the offense another tick and a 91 win team became a 76 win also-ran.

It was a slow bleed the first half of the season and then just a dismal march to the end after the eleven game losing streak. One can say that a 6-5 or even 5-6 run over those eleven games changes things, but there is nothing in looking back at 1986 that would lead you to believe that team was ever going to surge much above break even.

Quite honestly, the 1986 team simply did not play very good baseball. They weren’t horrible, mind you, just kind of there.  I believe the 2016 Royals are certainly a better team than the 1986 unit, but that does not mean they are immune from a similar fate.

Perhaps this year’s squad has gotten their rough patch out of the way and, jump started by last night’s walk-off win, will play like we expect them to play. That would be obviously preferable to the Royals, as they did in 1986, just hanging around for three months being ‘just fine’ before a bad streak sinks their season.