The Kansas City Royals are as close to an average baseball team as there can be. They’re in third place in the American League Central with a 16-15 record, but a closer look reveals there’s hardly anything average about them at all. Despite being over .500 and having Bobby Witt Jr. in the batting order every day, they have the worst offense in MLB.

The Royals have scored just 97 runs this year, and their 3.13 runs per game is last in MLB. They have only hit 14 home runs, which is five fewer than any other team in baseball. For context, there are three players who already have 10 home runs all by themselves—Aaron Judge, Cal Raleigh, and Eugenio Suárez. Vinny Pasquantino leads Kansas City with four, and no one else has more than two. The club also leads MLB with the 13 caught stealing, which isn’t helping.

Witt, the shortstop and face of the franchise, isn’t to blame. After leading MLB with a .332 batting average and finishing as the runner-up to Judge in the MVP race last season, he’s hitting .322/.388/.475 this year. He has nine stolen bases and leads the league with 12 doubles. His 144 OPS+ indicates his overall offense has been 44% better than the league average.

The problem is that Witt doesn’t have enough help from his teammates. Other than him, Drew Waters (120 OPS+), and Maikel Garcia (115 OPS+), no one else with more than 30 plate appearances has an OPS+ above 84.

The Royals were a surprise playoff team a year ago, claiming a wild card berth with an 86-76 record, but they struggled to find offense consistently aside from Witt. This offseason, they didn’t do much to address the lineup. Their only acquisitions were Cavan Biggio, Mark Canha, and Jonathan India. While Canha has hit well in a limited role, Biggio is batting .190 with no extra-base hits and India is hitting .216/.325/.265.

Long-time catcher Salvador Perez, who will turn 35 on May 10, appears to have regressed. After hitting .271 with 27 home runs and a 119 OPS+ in 2024, he has an 84 OPS+ this season. Pasquantino also had a difficult April, hitting just .177. Sometimes good hitters can backslide, but both of them could heat up as the season progresses.

The larger concern is that there are several players who provided insufficient production a year ago, yet the team continued to rely on them as starters this season. Kansas City’s front office failed to upgrade over Maikel Garcia at third base or Kyle Isbell and Hunter Renfroe in the outfield. Left fielder MJ Melendez has been sent down to the minors.

The Royals have benefitted from a strong pitching staff, which is why they have a winning record. Kris Bubic, Michael Lorenzen, Seth Lugo, Cole Ragans, and Michael Wacha have been reliable as a starting rotation, and they just called up top pitching prospect Noah Cameron. Their bullpen has a collective ERA of 3.28.

The quality of their pitching and the fact that Witt is one of the best players in MLB makes it that much more inexplicable that the Royals largely ignored the rest of the lineup this offseason. With a few more capable hitters, they could be running at the front of the pack in the American League. For their sake, hopefully they’ll seek to trade for some hitters before the trade deadline.