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KC Royals Snubbed By Sports Illustrated For Baseball Cover

By Scott Dillon

Nov 1, 2015; New York City, NY, USA; Kansas City Royals players pose for a team photo after defeating the New York Mets in game five of the World Series at Citi Field. The Royals win the World Series four games to one. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports
Nov 1, 2015; New York City, NY, USA; Kansas City Royals players pose for a team photo after defeating the New York Mets in game five of the World Series at Citi Field. The Royals win the World Series four games to one. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports /
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The KC Royals are getting snubbed again. This time the World Champions are being overlooked for Sports Illustrated’s 2016 MLB preview.

Virtually everyone is picking against the KC Royals again in 2016. They’ve gotten no love from PECOTA or other projection systems and Sports Illustrated is following suit.

This year’s edition of Sports Illustrated is featuring four different teams depending on the region. These are all teams who Sports Illustrated has projected to be in the playoffs this season and the Royals must not be part of those plans.

In fact, their power rankings have the Royals ranked 10th best in the MLB so they’re at least projecting a playoff berth for the defending World Champions. Here’s what they have to say about the Royals in the article:

"Teams that (mostly) stand pat after winning it all tend to see significant declines the following season, and the projection systems see that happening with the Royals."

The four teams to be featured in this year’s MLB preview edition are the New York Mets, the San Francisco Giants, the Chicago Cubs, and the Houston Astros. They could have at least split the bill and given a second American League team a look.

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The Royals did grace the cover of one of the regional releases in 2015. The theme for last year’s cover was ‘Why Not Us?’. This year’s theme is very similar in that these are basically the teams that Sports Illustrated expects to make a run at the title.

The Cubs are an obvious choice. That team is stacked through the lineup and they have the pitching to dominate their division. They’re the Vegas favorites to win the whole thing and for good reason.

The Mets have a seemingly endless number of ‘Ace’ quality pitchers to trot out to the mound each day. They’ve also removed Daniel Murphy from second base. Perhaps Neil Walker will use a bigger glove (or just be a better defender when it counts).

The Giants improved their rotation but haven’t made many other adjustments. They swapped our Nori Aoki on offense for Denard Span, but they’ll look at their staff to help them improve. They might be relying too much on the power of an even numbered year this time around.

The Astros are their favorites to win the World Series this year. Apparently, no one learned anything from Texas Governor Greg Abbot about declaring a victory just a little too soon. The Astros are a good team and they’re a young team. They have a ton of potential and could very well make a push for the title, but let’s not take the crown away from the Royals just yet.

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While the Astros are going to be a solid group, they still have some questions to answer. Lance McCullers just got shut down with arm issues. Ken Giles has gotten blown up in Spring Training. Doug Fister has to stage a comeback. Carlos Correa has to avoid any kind of sophomore slump (not likely to happen).

The point is, there a number of unknowns when it comes time to actually put bat to ball and play the game on the field. There are a number of teams that look good on paper, but baseball isn’t played on paper.

The Royals have proven projection systems wrong for the past couple of years and there is no reason to expect them to stop now. George Brett summed it up nicely when he stated:

"It’s the intangibles. They know how to play the game of baseball. They’re very aggressive on the bases. There are so many stats in baseball, I don’t even know what half of them mean. But you know what stats [don’t] do? It doesn’t measure brain and it doesn’t measure heart. That’s what this team is. We play smart and we have a big heart. As a result, we’ve been successful the last two years."

The Royal’s legend couldn’t have put it into words any better than he already did. This KC Royals’ team is special. They’ve proven that no matter how down and out they may seem they’re never really out of it.

Next: Projecting The 2016 Opening Day Roster

Whether this team is down four runs facing elimination or isn’t one of four teams selected to be selected for a Sports Illustrated cover, there is no reason to think they’ll back down. This team is going to come out and fight for 162 games. Then they’re going to come out and fight for potentially 20 more in the postseason.

So what do you think KC Royals’ fans? Do you think the Royals should’ve gotten a cover? Do you really care? Is there really a Sports Illustrated curse? Let me know in the comments’ section below.

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