A Hierarchy of Royals Needs

The Royals had a very good 2024. Now it's time to build on it.

An argument could be made that the Royals overachieved in 2024 by being extremely healthy, particularly in their starting rotation. You could also argue they underachieved if you look at their runs scored and runs allowed and see a Pythagorean Record that shows they were actually a 91-win team that won 86 games. Or you could look at something like base runs and see that they were an 86-win team that played like an…86-win team. I always believe a team can be +/- 10 wins from their true talent level, which, if I’m right, means the Royals had the true talent of a team that could win anywhere between 76 and 96 wins. While that’s a massive gap, I think that checks out.

We do know what they were in reality this past season. They were an 86-win team with the fifth-best record in the American League and they were among the last four teams playing. And as they move forward, there are two steps to getting better. The first is they need to ensure they’re at least as good as they were in 2024 and then they need to add a few wins. How many? It’s hard to say exactly. Cleveland won the AL Central with 92 this year, but here are the division-winning totals dating back to 2014 and excluding 2020: