Kansas City Royals Hitting, Pitching Like Legit AL Central Contenders

The Kansas City Royals barely lost the race to the absolute bottom of major league baseball last season, finishing 56-106, better than only the 50-win Oakland Athletics. Truth be told, however, they weren’t nearly that bad.

My batted ball-based method saw them as a 68-win true talent club – still awful, but nowhere near the A’s area code. In fact, their offense rated just a little worse than league average, and that was with promising young 1B Vinnie Pasquantino missing most of the season with a significant shoulder injury. They were led by cornerstone SS Bobby Witt Jr., who finished 7th in the MVP voting with a 30 homer/49 steal line.

The pitching? Well, it stunk. Way down in Oakland’s neighborhood. Their staff ranked dead last in the AL in strikeouts, and all but one of their main starters posted ERAs over 5.00.

The one exception – lefty Cole Ragans – was notable, and gave them hope moving forward. After proving unable to draft and develop dominant homegrown starters, they hit big on Ragans, acquired from the Texas Rangers at last year’s trading deadline for reliever Aroldis Chapman. He went 5-2, 2.64, in 12 late-season starts, with a glittering 89/27 K/BB ratio in 71 2/3 innings. He combines raw stuff with polished command, and put it all together immediately upon his arrival in Kansas City.

Still, the Royals knew they didn’t have enough starting pitching on hand, and set out to add more in the middle tier of the free agent market. They brought aboard righties Seth Lugo (three years, $45 million) and Michael Wacha (two years, $32 million) to at least add stability to the rotation. Some prognosticators scratched their heads at these investments, citing them as frivolous expenditures for a club in the early stages of a rebuild. But if they can slot into the rotation and offer them 160-180 innings apiece of mere competence, that would shorten games on a specific basis and the season in general.

And Lugo has been much more than competent in the early going, posting a 1.05 ERA in his first three starts. Now he’s only struck out 13 batters in 25 2/3 innings, so he’s due for some regression on balls in play, but he’s clearly better than other in-house alternatives.

Another big development has been the return of Brady Singer – the rare homegrown starter who has shown flashes of excellence over the years – from a late-2023 back injury. He’s posted an 0.98 ERA and an 18/4 K/BB over his first 18 1/3 innings. Lefty Ragans and righty Singer are the two Royals’ starters with above MLB-average upside.

They need their starters to give them six-plus innings on most nights, as the bullpen is unproven and doesn’t miss a ton of bats. In fact, while the Royals have allowed the fewest runs (48) in the AL through Monday’s games, with the 2nd lowest ERA (2.86), they ranked dead last in the circuit in strikeouts. Their spacious ballpark and the early season cold weather has cut them some breaks so far – while their pitching does appear much improved, you simply cannot be an above average run prevention outfit while striking out so few batters.

But maybe the pitching doesn’t need to be elite for the Royals to contend. Despite the pitcher-friendly nature of Kauffman Stadium, they could ultimately have an above average offense. They’re 1st in the AL with 87 runs scored, and the bulk of the damage has been done by a cadre of youngsters, led by face of the franchise Witt, 24, whose signing of a long-term, huge-money deal was covered in this space not long ago.

Pasquantino, 26, has locked down first base, MJ Melendez, 25, appears to be coming into his own in left field, while Maikel Garcia, 24, and Nelson Velazquez, 25, are holding down third base and DH while showing impressive batted ball metrics that offer hope for the future.

Veteran catcher Salvador Perez, 34, remains a durable, powerful presence behind the plate, and is off to a .339-.369-.565 start that is bettered only by Witt’s (.314-.368-.657). The lineup has length, power and speed. They’re 2nd in the AL in homers and 1st in steals. Again, they might not be THAT good, but I feel pretty comfortable in saying their offense is at least…….good. And in comparison to their track record in recent years, that’s saying something.

So like yesterday’s topic, the Detroit Tigers, the Kansas City Royals just might have the goods to be heard from in an eminently winnable American League Central. The bullpen is going to need fortification for that to happen, but that’s what the trading deadline is for. This time around, the Royals might be on the other end of the type of trade that delivered them Ragans last year.