Back in the day, when the Kansas City Royals were good for a spell, the unofficial motto of the team was “Speed and Defense.” Across the diamond, they overflowed with athletes who were above average defenders at their position or true defensive stars. When the Royals fell hard from the good graces of winning baseball in 2018, it seemed like they kept the motto going—merely failing at other parts of baseball, namely pitching and hitting.
However, that has not been the case, at least regarding the defense part of that motto. One of the reasons—perhaps not the most important reason, but a reason nonetheless—that the Royals have been a very bad team recently is that their defense has completely fallen apart.