Kansas City Royals Finish with 74 Wins in MLB The Show 2017 Simulation

The Kansas City Royals being underestimated never comes as a surprise to anyone. Once again, the Royals are underdogs heading into a new season, this time by a video game.

The KC Royals are less than a year and a half removed from winning the World Series in 2015, yet continue to be looked at as underdogs. It’s frustrating for Royals Nation, but hey… We’re used to it.

Being underdogs is the Royals’ ammo to succeed each year. Even last year, after they had just WON the freakin’ World Series, no one had faith in the Royals.

Sure, they finished at .500 on the year, but that was mainly due to injuries affecting the team right and left. Had the boys in blue been healthy, 2016 would have been an entirely different season for the then-reigning champions.

Now, however, the Royals don’t hold the crown, and according to Daniel George’s simulation on the newest MLB The Show video game, they won’t again in 2017… Nor will they even come close to it.

George’s simulation saw the Royals finishing with a 74-88 record, good for fourth in the American League Central. The only team simulated to do worse than Kansas City in the division this season was the Chicago White Sox, notching a 66-95 record.

Some of the positive notes from George’s project was that newly acquired Jorge Soler shined in his new role for the team.

"He led the offense with 26 home runs, 75 RBI, .491 SLG and came in second in OPS at .826. That will make him quite the commodity going forward."

… and in a surprising turn of events, Mike Minor was the star on the pitching staff, though none of it really added up.

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"Somehow they gave Mike Minor more than 208 innings pitched on the year despite no starts. That meant he was the leading pitcher for the Royals in terms of innings pitched, making him a candidate to throw for 2-4 innings every few games as a derelict sixth mid-game starter."

That’s not likely for several reasons. Unless Minor becomes a starter in the rotation, I don’t see him throwing over 200 innings. That’s basically impossible, right?

As for the actual starting rotation, maybe shield your eyes when reading this next quoted portion.

"The rotation of Jason Hammel, Danny Duffy, Ian Kennedy, Travis Wood getting stretched out and Jason Vargas resulted in a squad where nobody had an ERA below 4.06."

Yikes! If the Royals’ best starter next season posts a 4.06 ERA, then this team will be out of the playoff running before we even know it. I find it hard to believe that all of those guys will have down years, but even last year saw a good portion of the rotation struggling. It’s not entirely out of the equation.

This article is just a fun summary and isn’t what’s going to happen by any means. I feel good about the Royals’ chances of making it into the postseason in 2017, but they’ll have to start hot right out of the gate.

Near the end of the article, George lists the awards given out to each player, and Alex Gordon received a Gold Glove for his defensive efforts in left field. That’s nothing new!

Who won the World Series in this simulation, you ask? It was the Boston Red Sox over the New York Mets in six games.

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