The Royals went 74-88 and finished in 4th place in the American League Central for a third-straight season. While the Royals showed some improvement from the shortened 2020 campaign, the Royals still appear to be on the outside looking in when it comes to competing for an AL Central Division title and perhaps even a Wild Card in 2022.
Should the Royals want to compete for a Wild Card spot, or even a dark horse Central division title run, they will need “bounce back” seasons from a handful of Royals players. In this series of posts, I am going to write about four Royals players who need to rebound in 2022 if the Royals want to have any shot of making a postseason run (or even have a winning season, honestly).
Here are the following four Royals players, and the order of the articles that will be posted on this blog:
- Brad Keller, Starting Pitcher
- Hunter Dozier, Infielder/Outfielder
- Carlos Santana, First Baseman/DH
- Brady Singer, Starting/Relief Pitcher
As one can see, there is an interesting mix of the four listed above. Dozier and Kowar seem like long-term options in Kansas City, while the future is a lot murkier on Keller and Santana. That being said, the Royals will need these four to improve in some way or the other in order to improve as a team overall in 2021. Granted, it is early in the hot stove season, and who knows if the Royals will make a move or two that will either involve one of these four or at least impact them and their ability to contribute to the lineup or rotation next season. Nonetheless, it’s hard to see the Royals really competing in the AL Central next season unless we see some improvement from the four, and I will dig into each player’s outlook in their individual respective post.
And their improvement will be even more important if AL Central teams continue to load up with talent, with the Tigers being the most active Central division foe thus far (Carlos Correa would be a tough one to stomach as a Royals fan, but it would be fun to boo him multiple times a year at Kauffman Stadium):
I will have the first post on Keller posted later today, and will try to get each post done before the beginning of next week. It’s unlikely that the Royals will make a ton of moves this week, especially with the holidays on Thursday and Friday. However, who knows what Dayton Moore and the Royals will do and if any of those four will be affected in the coming days.
As always, thanks for following this blog, and look for the Keller post to drop later this afternoon!
Photo Credit: Ed Zurga/Getty Images
The Royals Reporter 