How quickly, it seems, did the Kansas City Royals fall from World Champions. Just four years removed from the pinnacle of baseball, they are now the third-worst team in the game.

Is the current situation the product of horrible management, the inevitable lapse after a championship, or some acceptable phase in the process of transition from one success to another?

We won’t know the ultimate answer to that question for years to come. But in hosting the New York Mets at Kauffman Stadium this weekend, the Royals can reflect on the rapid demise of other contenders.

When the Royals defeated the Mets in the 2015 World Series, New York fans justifiably took a “wait-‘til-next-year” attitude. After all, the Mets appeared built for a sustained run. Starting pitchers Jacob deGrom, Matt Harvey and Noah Syndergaard were as talented a 20-somethings trio as you could hope for. Closer Jeurys Familia, just 25 himself, was dominant.

But just two years later, the Mets were an also-ran. They’ve fought their way back to respectability, but are still probably not playoff worthy.

So, you might argue, what does one example of a quick demise prove? Well, take a look at some of the other playoff teams from 2014, the year the Royals reached the World Series:

• The Baltimore Orioles, the second-best team in the American League in 2014, are now one of the worst teams in history. (They are on pace to win just 100 games over a two-year span!)
• The Los Angeles Angels, the best team in the AL that season, have yet to return to the playoffs, and have been sub-.500 for the past four seasons, even with the game’s best player in Mike Trout.
• And the Detroit Tigers, who bested the Royals for the AL Central in 2014, have had just one winning season since, and are currently the worst team in baseball.

Look at 2015 for more evidence of what can happen to contenders:

• The Toronto Blue Jays, second only to the Royals in regular-season wins in 2015, are in their fifth-straight season of decline and are now on pace to lose 96 games.
• The Pittsburg Pirates, Wild Card participants in both 2014 and 2015, are currently on pace to lose 95 games.

Granted, the Royals are on a two-year skid that rivals that of the Orioles, so no one should be patting himself on the back in Kansas City. Still, there is some consolation in knowing that such collapses happen frequently in the era of free-agency.

The Royals chose to try to contend in 2016 and 2017 with the same group intact rather than quickly turn over what they’d built. What resulted was a slow decline leading to the bottom of the heap. So this rebuild may take a while. But they are not alone in their current circumstance. They can look across the diamond at Syndergaard, deGrom, et al, and take solace that at least they won a championship.

Tebow watch on hold:

The Mets come to Kansas City just a few weeks before the annual expansion of big league rosters. The timing seemed unfortunate to the Kauffman crowd, because it was believed the Mets might promote former Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow to their big-league roster come September. Just image if Touchdown Timmy had made his big league debut at Kauffman Stadium.

But alas, Tebow won’t reach the big leagues this year, and his chances of ever making the show are taking a serious blow. Tebow suffered a cut on his throwing hand and will be out for the rest of the season.

With Tebow just a step away from his ultimate goal, a rule change poses a serious threat to his future. The former quarterback turned 32 on Wednesday and probably needed the benefit of big September rosters to ever make the big leagues. Under the current rules, anyone on a club’s 40-man roster could be promoted in September.

But starting next year, expansion will only permit 28 players. With fewer spots available, room for Tebow may never exist. His window of opportunity certainly becomes a lot smaller come next season.

Anniversary of pennant race denied:

Through the decades of futility in Kansas City, the Royals looked back to 1994 as the last time they finished above .500, and the last time they chased a playoff spot.

Twenty-five years ago this week, major league players walked out on strike, just as the Royals emerged as the hottest team in baseball. In July and August of 1994, they won 14 in a row to make up 7.5 games in the standings and insert themselves in the playoff hunt. Kansas City boasted one of the best pitching staffs in the game, with starters David Cone, Kevin Appier, Mark Gubicza and Tom Gordon, plus closer Jeff Montgomery.

But on August 12, the players struck. When a resolution proved elusive, the season was eventually scrapped. It was the only time since 1904 that a World Series was not held.

The Royals finished 64-51, with nearly a third of the season left unplayed. Thus fans were denied the thrill of a pennant race, and they would have to wait 19 years for another realistic shot.

But unlike the New York Mess, the Royals did eventually win a championship.

If, as Kansas City Royals general manager Dayton Moore so often says, pitching is the currency of baseball, the Toronto Blue Jays are going to some awful great lengths to acquire some. And they are doing it at the expense of the Royals.

Every offseason, without any fanfare, a draft is held in which certain players who are left off their teams’ 40-man major league roster, are eligible. This rule applies to players at least 23 years of age with four or more professional seasons under their belts, or players at least 22 with five or more seasons logged.

Thus unprotected, they are eligible to be selected by another team in what is known as the Rule 5 Draft. The only stipulation is that the drafted player must stay with his new major league club for the entire season. The cost of the selection is $100,000.

As stated above, this applies to players at least 22 years of age, except in a few rare cases. One such anomaly this past offseason happened to be an 18-year-old Royals prospect named Elvis Luciano.

Acquired by Kansas City from the Arizona Diamondbacks in a trade for Jon Jay in the middle of the 2018 season, Luciano had never pitched above the rookie leagues. Signed as a 16-year-old in 2016, he pitched in a total of 16 games at the lowest levels possible in the Diamondbacks’ system in 2017.

Recognizing his raw potential, the Royals asked that Luciano be included in the trade for Jay that also netted them pitcher Gabe Speier. Still just 18, the Royals brought the Dominican-born right-hander along slowly in 2018, using him in just 13 games at their rookie league level.

The Royals hoped to nurture the teenager into a hurler in the mold of the late Dominican star Yordano Ventura. But there was one catch. His original minor-league deal with Arizona was voided after he failed a physical at age 16. He reworked a second deal, but the technicality exposed him to the Rule 5 Draft from day one.

But no team would draft an 18-year-old in the Rule 5 Draft, knowing he would have to stay on the major league roster, right?

Apparently the Blue Jays so prize the talents of young Luciano that they believed he was worth the risk. Luciano has spent the entire season as the youngest player in the majors.

“That’s incredible,” said Brad Keller, whom the Royals claimed in the previous’ Rule 5 Draft. “I felt like the jump from Double A to the big leagues was pretty big. I can’t imagine going from rookie ball to the big leagues.”

The Blue Jays had to answer for why they would even consider putting a player so obviously unprepared on their big league roster.

“Elvis is an exciting young arm that we’ve done a lot of work on and feel that any time you can acquire someone who has the chance to be a Major League starting pitcher, or a significant chance to be that, based on our projections, based on our scout looks,” Toronto general manager Ross Atkins told MLB.com at the time.

“The work that we did on him, these types of attributes are hard to acquire,” Atkins said of Luciano. “The age, there are pluses and minuses to that. The pluses are the upside, the very high ceiling. The minuses are the risk and the unknown in how little he has pitched.”

Keller was one of the rare cases where a Rule 5 Draft pick actually turned into a frontline player. Keller shocked the league when he proved an excellent option out of the bullpen, then was elevated to a starter midseason. Keller finished his rookie year with a 9-6 record and a 3.08 ERA.

Keller was thrown directly into the flames in 2018. The Royals had to find out if he was worth keeping or not. Luciano has been spared such a baptism by fire. The Blue Jays have used him sparingly, and only in low-pressure situations. Still, Keller recognizes what a tall order the young man faces.

“All the power to him,” Keller said. “I’d just say keep your head down and learn as much as possible during the time you’re there, and soak in the moment of just getting to be in the big leagues.

The Blue Jays have found a loophole to protect Luciano even further. On June 12, they placed him on the injured list, and he’s stayed there. The Blue Jays will hide the “injured” teenager there for the maximum of 60-days. By rule, he has to be active for at least 90 days. So the Blue Jays will activate him in mid-August for a few weeks, and he will almost certainly be sent to the minor leagues next year.

Luciano will still be nursing his purported injury when the Blue Jays visit Kansas City July 29-31, thus missing his only chance to face his former employer.

“Its part of the business, part of the way things work,” said Keller of the strange route of young Luciano. “But you can try to enjoy every moment while you’re there. And if you learn all you can while you’re there, then maybe it won’t be such a long road to get back if you are sent down next year. For him, my advice would be just learn as much as you can, so that the whole time you’re in the minors you’ll already know what it takes to be in the big leagues.”