Tony Pena resigned as manager of the Kansas City Royals today as his team lurched to an 8-25 start this season. It is a new low for a franchise given that a little over a season ago Pena seemed to rejuvenate the team en route to AL Manager of the Year honors. Many (including me) picked the Royals to win the AL Central just last season.

Now, the Royals seemed assured to suffer through their eleventh losing season in the last twelve years. They are currently on track to best (worst?) the inaugural 1962 Mets 40-120 record as the worst record in the expansion era. They do trail the 1916 Philly A's for the worst record in the "modern" era:

Pena also has the worst record of any manager to win Manager of the Year honors (stats through 2005):

Not only that, Pena has the fifteenth worst record among managers with at least three seasons and 300 games of managerial experience. His is the worst such managerial career since Russ Nixon shuffled off his managerial coil in 1990:

Pena's 2005 campaign will go down as one of the worst for a manager ever. It's just one of twenty in the last forty years in which the manager's team lost at least three times as many games as they won:

If one filters out the interim managers, it gets worse. For managers who managed at least 25 games in the given season, Pena's 2005 is the worst in 25 years and one of just ten in the "modern" era in which the manager's team won 25% of the time or less:

Using Pena's 33 games in 2005 as the minimum, only 29 other managers have plied their trade with a team for at least that many games in a season and won 25% of the time or less. Pena's .242 winning percentage this year is the worst such record since Shano Collin's helped "lead" the hapless 1932 Red Sox to 43-111 record (.279):