Kansas City Royals ranked as bottom five team heading into 2020

OAKLAND, CA - SEPTEMBER 16: Brett Phillips #14 of the Kansas City Royals is congratulated by Whit Merrifield #15 after hitting a home run against the Oakland Athletics during the ninth inning at the RingCentral Coliseum on September 16, 2019 in Oakland, California. The Kansas City Royals defeated the Oakland Athletics 6-5. (Photo by Jason O. Watson/Getty Images) /

The 2020 MLB season is set to get underway and the Kansas City Royals aren’t highly thought of.

Joel Reuter of Bleacher Report compiled his rankings of the MLB teams heading into the 2020 season and had the Kansas City Royals ranked 26th. This isn’t shocking considering how poorly the Royals have played the past two seasons.

Here is what Reuter had to say,

"The Royals seem content biding their time while they wait on a wave of pitching talent to arrive from down on the farm. In the meantime, they have uncovered some solid core pieces in Adalberto Mondesi, Jorge Soler, Hunter Dozier and Brad Keller, and they will continue to focus on developing their in-house talent in 2020."

Again, this ranking isn’t shocking because it’s no secret that the Royals are in rebuild mode since losing their prime talent after the 2017 season. While they made some strides in 2019, it wasn’t by much and the hope was that 2020 would be when we’d start to see some of that new talent make their debuts.

With the shortened season, that might not be as likely unfortunately. It’s still possible that pitchers like Brady Singer and Jackson Kowar could get to the big leagues, but spring training is going to be very important for both of them when it comes to potentially making that happen.

Reuter mentions that the Royals signed Maikel Franco to take over at third base for the 2020 season and also noted that Greg Holland and Trevor Rosenthal joined the Royals as well. Holland spent the early part of his career with the team and made a name for himself during the 2013-2015 seasons.

The Royals’ biggest losses, according to Reuter, were Jacob Barnes, Cheslor Cuthbert, and Wily Peralta, which made me chuckle because those didn’t seem like big losses whatsoever.