The Royals “Are Playing Some Ball” (And It Seems to Be For Real)

Today, the Kansas City Royals completed the sweep of the Detroit Tigers with an 8-3 win on Wednesday afternoon at the K.

The win highlighted many benchmarks for a Royals team that has been one of the most surprising clubs in baseball in 2024. First, the Royals swept the series against Detroit and the homestand, as Kansas City swept the Oakland Athletics over the weekend.

As Royals Director of Media Relations, Nick Kappel pointed out on X, the Royals are the first team since the Yankees in 2022 to have multiple perfect homestands in a season.

If that wasn’t enough, the Royals improved to 32-19 after today’s win over the Tigers. That win matches the number of wins the Royals had up to July 30th in 2023.

Additionally, according to Fangraphs, the win improved the Royals’ playoff odds to 61.2%, ahead of the Twins (59.6%) but slightly behind the Guardians (66.3%). Kansas City is firmly in one of the Wild Card positions, leading the Twins by four games for the second Wild Card spot.

After last year’s 56-106 season, owner John Sherman and GM JJ Picollo seemed focused on improving the Royals’ roster this offseason to build a 2024 team that could at least “compete” for a Wild Card spot. After 51 games, the Royals have been victorious in that regard, as they will enter the month of June with strong odds of making the postseason as long as they can stay healthy.

Nonetheless, there still seem to be doubts about the outlook for this Royals squad for the remainder of the 2024 season. This has been particularly echoed by Guardians fans, who have been quite vocal about the Royals’ hot start and that it may be “fool’s gold” due to a “soft” schedule and some injury luck.

Honestly, it does look like the top of the division could be a dogfight between the Royals and Guardians, a battle not many baseball fans expected back when pitchers and catchers reported in February. The Twins could still be in the hunt, but they have struggled to find consistency, and barring something significant happening, it seems like the Tigers may still be a year away (and they may need to re-tool a lot of their roster in the process as well).

However, are Guardians fans onto something here? Are the Royals riding a beneficial stretch in May and due for a reality check in June, when they begin the month against teams like the Padres, Guardians, Mainers, Yankees, and Dodgers?

Are the Royals simply out-performing their projections and due for regression over the next month, whether it’s on a hitting end, pitching end, or both?

It’s easy to automatically think that as a Royals fan. After decades of struggle (sans that 2013-2017 run), it can be second nature for Royals fans to automatically believe that the Royals will fall back to earth and be akin to the clubs we have seen over the past five seasons.

That said, this team is different, and because of that, the Royals nation should expect a different outlook.

Let’s examine why this year is atypical of what Royals fans have been accustomed to since 2018.

The Royals’ Offense is Trending in the Right Direction

After a big homestand, the Royals have improved in many statistical rankings, especially on the hitting end.

As of Wednesday, Kansas City ranks 8th in batting average, 9th in OPS, 5th in runs scored, and 6th in stolen bases. Their OBP (17th) and HR (15th) rankings are a bit more mediocre, but they are still solid spots and significantly improved from last season.

Witt and Salvy have primarily led the Royals’ lineup this year, which makes sense considering their .916 and .952 OPS marks, respectively. That said, Kansas City also saw some improvement from their young hitters during this most recent homestand.

Garcia’s OPS is up to .740 for the year, making him one of the best hitters on the team in this category, not named Salvy or Witt. In his last seven games, Garcia has been an absolute machine at the plate on both a contact and power end, making him an ideal leadoff hitter for this Royals team.

Vinnie Pasquantino has been a little more up and down, but he’s still posting a .722 OPS, highlighted by .311 OBP and 10.4% BB%. There still is a lot of red in Vinnie’s Savant sliders, which shows that he may soon be due for a swing in the right direction when it comes to hitting production.

Lastly, Michael Massey has gotten off to a scorching start after missing the beginning of the year due to a minor back injury (suffered in Spring Training). In 107 plate appearances, Massey has a .790 OPS and has hit five home runs, including this one on Monday against Detroit’s Reese Olson.

The Royals have five hitters (Maikel, Witt, Vinnie, Salvy, and Massey) that they can trust. As a result, that takes the pressure off the rest of the lineup, allowing them to be more comfortable in their at-bats.

Case in point? We saw breakout series performances from Renfroe, Nelson Velazquez, and Freddy Fermin, with the latter two having big days at the plate in the Royals’ sweep-clinching win.

Typically, the 6-9 parts of any batting order can be a bit of a crapshoot. That part of the lineup varies in composition due to matchups. If Royals fans look at the 6-9 holes of any team lineup, even the best teams in the league, they will be surprised by how similar statistically they will look to the Royals’ own players who have primarily hit in those spots.

As Preston mentioned in the Tweet above, the bottom of any lineup doesn’t necessarily need to be statically “competent.” After all, they are 6-9 hitters at the end of the day. Instead, they need to be “opportunistic” and seize advantages where they can.

The Guardians have done it all year, so they’re at the top of the standings.

The Royals started to do it in the past two series against Oakland and Detroit.

Having a dependable 1-5 in the batting order helps (and will continue to help as long as that 1-5 continues to produce).

The Royals Starting Pitching Isn’t Smoke and Mirrors

My biggest pet peeve with Guardians Prospective’s tweet is his implication that the starting pitching isn’t that good and that they’ve been “over-performing.”

I decided to dive into the data on starting pitchers this year via Fangraphs to see if this Guardian fan’s hypothesis had legitimate backing or was based on the idea that “the Royals starting pitching has never been good before, so it can’t be good now.”

Here’s how the Royals started pitching staff ranks in many different categories that can be both evaluative and predictive.

  • ERA: 2nd
  • K/BB: 9th
  • FIP: 2nd
  • xFIP: 6th
  • SIERA: 8th

As one can see, the Royals’ starting pitching staff has been a Top-10 unit in nearly every major category. Cole Ragans also proved that today by not just outdueling Tarik Skubal, who’s been one of the top pitchers in the AL this year, but also striking out 12 batters, a career-high.

Now, let’s look at the Cleveland Guardians’ starting pitcher rankings.

  • ERA: 14th
  • K/BB: 21st
  • FIP: 23rd
  • xFIP: 23rd
  • SIERA: 21st

Despite Guardians Prospective’s doubts about the Royals’ starting pitchers, they seem to ignore the Guardians’ rotation issues. Granted, they did point out that losing Shane Bieber and Gavin Williams to injury hurt, but the data clearly illustrates that the Guardians starters may not be as good as the ERA says.

Cleveland has coasted slightly on prospect “reputation” with starters like Tanner Bibbee, Triston McKenzie, and Logan Allen. McKenzie and Allen are posting FIP numbers of 4.87 and 4.80, respectively. Those are mediocre marks and don’t match the prospect hype that either guy has held in years past.

As for Bibbee, he’s been more impressive with a 3.77 FIP (which is better than his 3.93 ERA). That said, Bibbee was expected to be an “ace” in the absence of Bieber, and while Bibbee has been good, he may not entirely be that “Bieber 2.0” that many Guardians fans were envisioning.

I do think the Royals’ starting pitchers will regress a little over time. Seth Lugo will not have an ERA under two forever, and Alec Marsh won’t have an ERA under three forever. Brady Singer will probably hit a stretch that will remind Royals fans of his 2023 (which wasn’t good).

That said, the Guardians starting pitching staff seems to be a likely candidate for regression as well, and at a much more dramatic rate, based on their ERA and FIP differences.

When and How Much Will the Royals Regress?

The Royals will regress at some point as a team. Right now, they’re on pace to win over 100 games, and as remarkable as that would be, going from 100+ losses to 100+ wins is nearly impossible, especially in this modern age of baseball.

Kansas City will see guys hit a wall and slump (maybe again, depending on the case). A key player will get injured and miss time. They will hit a rough stretch of games where they give away games they should win.

An Achilles heel of this Royals team is the bullpen, which ranks 26th in WHIP, 20th in BB/9, and 29th in K/9. This bullpen will blow some games they should win until they get reinforcements, whether from Omaha or outside the organization.

(Thankfully, calling up Sam Long and designating Matt Sauer for assignment was a step in the right direction for the bullpen, even if it was painful to perhaps lose out on Sauer’s long-term potential.)

So, as fun as all this winning is, the Royals’ losing will come at some point, as it does for all MLB teams.

How much, though?

Here’s a look at Fangraphs’ projections for the remainder of the season, including the Royals and the other teams in the AL Central.

As Royals fans can see in the table above, Fangraphs is projecting the Royals to go 55-57 for the remainder of the year. That would result in a record of 86-76 for the season and a Wild Card spot.

Considering that many Royals fans (including myself) thought that 74-78 wins would be cause for celebration, a possible 30-win turnaround from a year ago would be worth a parade down Main Street (even if it doesn’t result in a pennant or World Series title).

That said, while the Royals’ pace is predicted to stagnate at some point, Fangraphs is also projecting the same fate for the Guardians.

Fangraphs projects that the Guardians will have a rest-of-the-season record of 55-58 and an 87-75 final record. That is only one win better than the Royals projected record. In addition, they also project the Guardians to finish with a lower run differential (+43) than the Royals (+56) by the end of the season.

The projections are still bullish on the Twins, as evidenced by their 60-54 record down the stretch and 85-77 record. That said, Minnesota may be in too much of an early hole to overcome either Cleveland or Kansas City in the Central standings.

Then again, it’s only May. June will be a huge month not just for the Royals but also for the Guardians and Twins (sorry, White Sox; it’s already over for you guys).

The Royals will hit a wall at some point and go on a losing stretch that will deflate their win pace and total.

That said, the Guardians will also experience the same. How long that stretch will be for both teams could be the difference between a division title and perhaps missing the postseason.

Regardless, the Royals have set themselves up well through 51 games.

And Royals fans should start believing that this club has what it takes to compete for a playoff spot and go on a dark horse run in the postseason like the Rangers and Diamondbacks a year ago.

I’ll let Maikel take it away regarding what this team is doing right now and why Royals fans should prioritize being at the K this summer…

Photo Credit: Ed Zurga/Getty Images

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