One thing I'm noticing about the Royals is that their hitters really, really don't like to accept help from opposing pitchers. The only guy on the team who is drawing walks in 10% or more of his plate appearances is Mark Teahen (10.5%). Some of these numbers are outrageous:

Tony Pena, 2.4%
Jose Guillen, 2.7%
Miguel Olivo, 3.1%
Joey Gathright, 4.7%

Really, if a guy like Gathright can't reach base, what's the use of even keeping him on a big-league roster? He could yield that spot to someone who actually might help the team win games. Pena, too, but his performance is so ridiculous (.155/.175/.193) that I scarcely know what to do with it. At least Guillen and Olivo hit the ball hard with some degree of regularity. And for all my griping about Guillen calling out his teammates, I have to admit, dude stepped it up big time against the Yankees over the weekend.

Anyway, the team as a whole has drawn walks in 6.5% of plate appearances so far in 2008. Or to put it another way, the Royals are a little less selective than Wes Helms and ex-Royal Emil Brown (among many others) have been throughout their careers:

 PABBBB/PA
Royals '082434157.065
Wes Helms2221161.072
Emil Brown2303180.078

These guys aren't exactly known for their patience at the plate, but they've been more selective than this year's Royals. Let's pro-rate everything to 600 plate appearances (roughly a player-season):

 PABB
Royals '0860039
Wes Helms60043
Emil Brown60047
MLB '0860054

I threw in the MLB totals for 2008 just for grins. I'm not sure, but I'll bet another 15 walks or so per player per season might help the Royals score more runs, which might help them win more games. Just a thought...