Major League Baseball

Three reasons to watch the Kansas City Royals in 2015

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 7:55 p.m. ET

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Can you believe it? I still can'€™t believe it. Last fall, the Kansas City Royals were losing 7-3 in the eighth inning of a one-game playoff just to be in the playoffs ... and wound up just one big fly away from winning the whole dang shebang. I haven'€™t made my list of unlikeliest seasons in major-league history, but the Royals'€™ 2014 will probably be on there somewhere.

So how do you follow up a year like that? Fair or not, anything less than another wild card will be considered a disappointment by everyone in the organization, from the 80-year-old owner to the 19-year-old lion. Not to mention a bunch of normal people who just like baseball.

So what will it take for the Royals to repeat, or even win their division for the first time in 30 years? Well, it will help a lot if some of these things go well...

1. The new guys getting paid to hit
The Royals lost two everyday players to free agency: DH Billy Butler and right fielder Nori Aoki. Replacing them? Kendrys Morales and Alex Rios. Now, it's worth pointing out that neither Butler nor Aoki was particularly good last season, and should theoretically be easy to replace. Theoretically. Last season, Morales batted .218/.274/.338 in 98 games with the Twins and Mariners; Rios did better, with a .280/.311/.398 line in 131 games for the Rangers, but seemed to struggle in the outfield.

Nevertheless, the Royals are making a two-year, $17 million bet that Morales can rediscover his stroke, and a one-year, $11 million bet on Rios. The good news is that both have been productive this spring; the bad news is that spring training doesn'€™t usually mean a great deal. But both men have hit before, and if both hit again the Royals might actually come out ahead on this deal.

2. Those three thrilling young throwers
OK, so for the moment it'€™s only two; Monday, young Brandon Finnegan was dropped from the Royals'€™ major-league roster, which was at least a little surprising considering the splash Finnegan made last fall. But Finnegan figures to rejoin the Royals at some point this season, and anyway they'€™ve still got rookie sensation Yordano Ventura and 26-year-old Danny Duffy, who combined for 23 wins last season.

Just as the Royals need some real production from Morales and Rios, they'€™ll probably need at least 30 wins and 350-400 innings from Ventura and Duffy, because there really aren'€™t any other obvious candidates in the rotation to replace the value lost when James Shields left via free agency.

3. The best thing about the (2014) Royals
Closer Greg Holland and setup men Wade Davis and Kelvin Herrera combined for 204 1/3 innings last season and gave up the grand total of three home runs ... and all three of those were surrendered by Holland, arguably the American League's best closer. Holland'€™s 1.44 ERA was also the highest of the three firemen. Finnegan and Jason Frasor performed well after joining the Royals late in the season, but otherwise the rest of the relief corps really wasn't much good.

Can anyone reasonably expect Holland or Davis or Herrera --€“ let alone all three of them --€“ to pitch as well this year? No. So maybe this item is really about watching two things: how much the H-D-H combo regresses, and which KC relievers (if any) pick up the slack.

This looks like a weak division, so we shouldn'€™t be shocked if the Royals do return to the playoffs. We also shouldn'€™t be shocked if they finish fourth.

Kansas City Royals
2014 record: 89-73
Playoffs: Lost to San Francisco Giants (4-3) in World Series
Projected 2015 record:  78-84*
Key additions: SP Edinson Volquez, DH Kendrys Morales, OF Alex Rios, SP/RP Chris Young, SP Kris Medlen
Key subtractions: SP James Shields, DH Billy Butler, OF Nori Aoki, RP, Aaron Crow, OF Josh Willingham, DH/OF Raul Ibanez

*Projected records courtesy of Fangraphs

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