Kansas City Royals might not be that bad in 2018 after all

The Kansas City Royals were projected to be a pretty bad team this season, but some of that talk might die down now with some of the moves the team has made recently.

The PECOTA projections for 2018 came out last month and Kansas City Royals fans were bummed to see their team projected as one of the worst teams this year. Now PECOTA projections don’t mean much (as we all witnessed in 2015), but this one actually seemed somewhat accurate.

When looking at the Royals roster at the time of those predictions, Hunter Dozier was probably playing first base and Cheslor Cuthbert was probably over at third. Cuthbert had a nice 2016 season, but it still wasn’t a full season of work and he hasn’t done much since. Dozier has done nothing in the major leagues.

Those two guys jumping into starting roles obviously meant the Royals were going to be experiencing some growing pains. That was the plan though… or so we all thought.

Maybe that “next wave” of Royals players to help lead this group back to the promise land aren’t in the system yet.

Things have obviously changed a bit over the past few weeks for the Royals. No, they didn’t retain Eric Hosmer, but they’ve made three signings over the past couple of weeks that could actually lead to them being halfway decent in 2018.

The first signing was Lucas Duda, who was inked to a one-year deal and will more than likely be the Royals’ Opening Day first baseman. While Royals fans know Duda for his error in Game 5 of the World Series, he’s done more than that in his long career. He hit 30 home runs last year, which is nothing to scoff at.

The next signing was Jon Jay, who spent last season with the Chicago Cubs. Jay will probably be the Opening Day center fielder for the Royals and could also be their leadoff man. He batted .296 with the Cubs in 379 at bats last year, so that kind of pop could be a difference in this lineup.