The Röyals had the worst real win-loss record-pythag in the American League, a full seven games above what you'd expect. Final record: 71-91, 11th in the league. Pythag record: 78-84, 8th in the league. Theoretically, then, the Royals are three games under .500 for this season. I have a feeling that with some better performance from some field players, and two new decent starting pitchers, they might go several games above .500 in 2012. Pythagorically, at least. Two guesses at why they underperformed their pythag: 1) They sent out several of the very worst pitchers in the American League on a regular basis. Kyle Davies isn't a -1 WAR pitcher, he's a -5 WAR pitcher. 2) Ned did way too much base-stealing, sacrifice-bunting, and dumb bullpen managing, so much so that it cost us several games. AL Pythag win-loss records: NYY: 101-61 TEX: 98-64 BOS: 94-68 TBR: 91-71 DET: 89-73 LAA: 85-77 TOR: 79-83 KCR: 78-84 OAK: 77-85 CLE: 75-87 CHW: 75-87 BAL: 67-95 SEA: 67-95 MIN: 62-100 Several games above .500 might win the Central next year, as our opponents are old and slow and have expensive sucky players weighing them down. The Röyals have some cheap sucky players, true, but at least they're cheap.