Yes, the Royals won just 56 games last year, which was second-worst in the majors. Yes, the Royals have won the division just once in the 29 years that they’ve been in the AL Central; and yes, they haven’t won more than 81 games since the 2015 season, but let’s not rule the Royals out of the AL Central conversation just yet.
The AL Central is a notably weak division, with the Minnesota Twins claiming it last season as the only team over .500, with just 87 wins. For context, that 87-win mark would have put the Twins in fourth place in either of the other AL divisions and was tied for the lowest total by a division winner since 2009 when the Twins won the division with 87 wins.
Now why is this relevant? Well, the Twins have arguably gotten worse over the offseason, losing starters Sonny Gray, who finished second in AL Cy Young voting, and Kenta Maeda without making any notable upgrades to the rotation.
Projection models have taken note of this too, as FanGraphs currently has the Twins projected for 84 wins, and most sportsbooks have their over/under set at either 85.5 or 86.5. Baseball reference seems to be the only site with a positive projection with their win total at 88.9. However, they also have the Yankees win total at 71.6 and the reigning World Series champion Rangers at 82.2, so I’m more hesitant to trust that.
Enough about the Twins though. The Royals had a great offseason, all things considered, putting them in a position to shock MLB. After finishing the year with a pitching staff that recorded the third-worst team ERA at 5.17, Kansas City went out and bolstered their staff with proven veterans, adding Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha to the rotation and Nick Anderson and Chris Stratton to the ‘pen, with Will Smith occupying the closer’s role.
Lugo and Wacha join a rotation that already has young promise. After acquiring him from Texas for Aroldis Chapman last season, Cole Ragans took the league by storm, posting a 2.64 ERA across 12 starts with 89 strikeouts in 71.2 innings for Kansas City, and has looked electric thus far throughout Spring Training.
But any conversation about the Royals’ chances to play in October falls squarely on Bobby Witt Jr. After a decent rookie campaign where he recorded a 0.9 WAR, Witt took a giant leap forward in 2023, increasing his plate discipline en route to a .276/.319/.495 slash line and 4.4 WAR, and acquired some MVP votes along the way. He has real 30-30 potential at the plate and has vastly improved his defense since his rookie season.
The Royals just paid him like an MVP candidate, is it possible that Witt takes that next step and becomes a top player in the league? I wouldn’t rule it out of the picture.
Witt isn’t the only guy to keep an eye on though. In his first full season in the league, first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino made his mark and ended the 2022 season with a slash line of .295/.383/.450, although his most impressive feat was his plate discipline. In 258 at-bats, Pasquantino drew more walks (35) than strikeouts (34).
His season was cut short last year after a torn right labrum in June, but a fully healthy season of Pasquantino paired with a potential MVP-type season out of Witt could be one of the league’s more lethal, yet underrated one-two punches.
And for anyone concerned about the 30-ish win jump that the Royals may need to make, don’t be. The Pythagorean win-loss record, which is based on the number of runs that team has scored and allowed, had the Royals going 64-98 last season. Obviously, this still isn’t great, but it goes to show that the Royals weren’t the luckiest team in MLB.
Outside of that, there are plenty of examples of teams raising their win total by a large margin. Just last season, the Diamondbacks were projected to win 74 games, yet we know how that ended. They won 84 games, just three shy of the Twins, and it resulted in a trip to the World Series. While the margin isn’t great, the D-Backs took that step forward thanks to the play of their young guys, especially Corbin Carroll, which is a formula that Kansas City will look to replicate.
Another instance comes just the year prior in 2022, when the Orioles increased their win total from 52 to 83. In 2011, the Diamondbacks jumped from 66 wins to 94 en route to an NL West division title, and in 2008, the Rays went from 66 to 97 wins and ended up playing in the World Series that year, so let’s not act like this isn’t possible.
I’m not alone on this either. According to a poll conducted by the MLB, the majority of players believe that the Royals can be this year’s biggest surprise team.
So we’ll see. Maybe the Royals come out flat, Bobby Witt takes a step back, or the pitching doesn’t pan out the way Royals’ management intended. But, baseball’s a long season for a reason, so we’ll see.
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