KC Royals: Five Reasons The Royals Will Repeat
By Scott Dillon
It’s all about chemistry.
Most, if not all, projection systems have been unkind to the Kansas City Royals this off-season. Not only do most of the projections have the Royals not winning their division, most of them have the Royals finishing with a losing record.
It doesn’t help matters any that all of the Twins, White Sox, and Tigers have added some big pieces this off-season.
The Tigers have spent big this off-season with acquisitions like Jordan Zimmerman and Justin Upton. They’re also expecting Justin Verlander and Anibal Sanchez to be healthy at the start of the season which should help them improve over last season.
The Twins came out of nowhere last season to surprise some people and compete for most of the regular season for a shot at the playoffs. They’ve got a great young core and added a power bat in Byung Ho Park. They’ve got a solid core and could compete very soon, but likely not this year. That being said they were full of surprises last year.
The White Sox made a lot of off-season moves and acquired both Brett Lawrie and Todd Frazier via trades this off-season. They also made a shrewd late move to add Austin Jackson to the outfield mix and brought in the veteran presence of Jimmy Rollins.
What none of these teams are going to be able to address in a single off-season is the chemistry that the Royals have.
It’s been well documented that the Royals have great club chemistry and the team operates more like a family than a group of guys looking for the next big thing. Meanwhile the Twins lost great clubhouse presence Torii Hunter. The Tigers are a team that may have too many egos, and the White Sox added guys with historically troubled clubhouse pasts.
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