KC Royals Ranked Fourth Best In MLB By ESPN

The KC Royals are the 4th best team in baseball heading into the 2015 season according to ESPN.com’s Buster Olney.

Maybe they are, or maybe they aren’t—but seeing the Kansas City Royals in the top five of Olney’s pre-season rankings shows that 2014 has earned the organization respect around baseball.

Olney writes on his ESPN.com blog:

"They didn’t really scare anyone throughout 2014 and they won’t scare anyone now, because they aren’t a great offensive team and their rotation is good and not great. The Royals aren’t going to run away from what should be an incredibly competitive field in the AL Central. But the key pieces of this club — Alex Gordon, Lorenzo Cain, Yordano Ventura, the three dominant relievers — are all in their prime."

Certainly, having your core players all in their prime makes it more likely that they will deliver as expected rather than suffer injury, or a sudden decline. Yet, Olney is far more bullish on the Kansas City Royals than most other predictions for 2015.

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Add up the Steamer projections for the KC Royals expected roster and you get a total of 37.1 WAR. Since an American League replacement level team would be expected to win 48 games, the Steamer projection suggests the Royals will win 85 games next season. Fangraphs.com is less confident than Steamer, predicting the KC Royals to win a mere 81 games, and 17th best in MLB.

However, Fangraphs predicted the 2014 Royals to also win a mere 81.1 games, with a 24% chance of making the playoffs and a 3.6% chance at making the World Series.

Cheer up, Royals fans. At least Fangraphs see the Royals as strong as last year’s squad.

The KC Royals, however, are a team likely to outperform statistical projection models. Last season, the Royals scored 37 more runs than they gave up. Since the rule of thumb is that for every 10 runs of run differential, you should expect one game over .500, Kansas City exceeded this expectation by four games (89 wins vs. 85 wins).

That difference is probably due to the team’s unusually strong trio of elite relievers that help the KC Royals hold onto late leads. The Royals were the best in baseball in 2014 bringing home wins when leading after seven innings with a 76-1 record.

Kansas City should be even stronger in the pen this season. Along with the HDH trio of Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis, and Greg Holland all returning, the Royals signed Luke Hochevar, (who missed all of 2014 after Tommy John surgery), late-season acquisition Jason Frasor, former Phillies closer Ryan Madson, and hope to get Kris Medlen back by mid-season.

No one really knows what is going to happen during the 2015 season, but it is nice that the KC Royals are no longer a joke.

Next: Five Worst Managers In KC Royals History

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