Can the Royals Pull Off an AL Central Upset?
Believe it or not, we’re almost 10% of the way through the 2024 season. While baseball always offers myriad surprises, especially this early, one of the ones that most intrigues me is the success of the Kansas City Royals, who stand at 10-6, just a half-game behind the Cleveland Guardians in the AL Central. Naturally, as the resident spoilsport of the baseball analytics community, my job is to dig into the unexpected and see if it has some meat on its bones. And the Royals winning the division would definitely count as unexpected. Justin Mason was the only member of our staff to pick them to win the Central before the season started, while our playoff odds had KC with about a 1-in-14 chance to stand atop the division; ZiPS was even lower, pegging them at a 5.9% chance of taking the division.
So how good are the Royals’ chances? I just finished a late Sunday night ZiPS update, so these projected ZiPS standings are hot off the presses silicon motherboard:
| Team | W | L | GB | Pct | Div% | WC% | Playoff% | WS Win% | 80th | 20th |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cleveland Guardians | 86 | 76 | — | .531 | 40.5% | 20.6% | 61.0% | 3.8% | 94.8 | 79.4 |
| Minnesota Twins | 85 | 77 | 1 | .525 | 32.1% | 20.4% | 52.5% | 4.2% | 93.3 | 77.4 |
| Kansas City Royals | 80 | 82 | 6 | .494 | 16.4% | 17.9% | 34.3% | 1.4% | 88.9 | 73.8 |
| Detroit Tigers | 79 | 83 | 7 | .488 | 11.0% | 14.0% | 25.0% | 0.8% | 86.6 | 71.3 |
| Chicago White Sox | 57 | 105 | 29 | .352 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 64.5 | 49.1 |
This isn’t the flashiest set of projected standings for the Royals, but it represents an impressive jump after just 16 games. While they’ve banked some extra wins, they also haven’t run away with an early divisional lead because the Guardians and Tigers are also playing well. But Kansas City’s 80 projected wins represents the 76th-percentile outcome in the preseason projections. To put the team’s improvement in context, here are the changes in ZiPS division and playoff probabilities for all 30 teams:
| Team | Pre Div% | Div% | Difference | Pre Playoff% | Playoff% | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kansas City Royals | 5.9% | 16.4% | 10.5% | 12.5% | 34.3% | 21.8% |
| New York Yankees | 24.1% | 36.1% | 12.0% | 59.3% | 74.2% | 14.9% |
| Pittsburgh Pirates | 8.9% | 12.7% | 3.8% | 17.9% | 28.1% | 10.2% |
| Milwaukee Brewers | 14.7% | 19.0% | 4.3% | 27.3% | 37.3% | 10.0% |
| Cleveland Guardians | 38.4% | 40.5% | 2.1% | 55.1% | 61.0% | 5.9% |
| Los Angeles Dodgers | 49.3% | 56.8% | 7.5% | 79.0% | 84.4% | 5.4% |
| Chicago Cubs | 27.9% | 28.2% | 0.3% | 43.5% | 48.1% | 4.6% |
| Baltimore Orioles | 37.2% | 37.3% | 0.1% | 72.1% | 75.8% | 3.7% |
| San Diego Padres | 12.7% | 12.3% | -0.4% | 41.2% | 43.3% | 2.1% |
| Cincinnati Reds | 20.8% | 19.2% | -1.6% | 35.1% | 37.1% | 2.0% |
| Texas Rangers | 28.4% | 36.9% | 8.5% | 55.5% | 56.0% | 0.4% |
| Detroit Tigers | 13.2% | 11.0% | -2.2% | 24.8% | 25.0% | 0.2% |
| Tampa Bay Rays | 11.9% | 10.0% | -1.9% | 41.1% | 41.2% | 0.1% |
| Atlanta Braves | 62.6% | 65.4% | 2.8% | 84.0% | 83.8% | -0.2% |
| Arizona Diamondbacks | 20.5% | 18.4% | -2.1% | 55.5% | 55.2% | -0.3% |
| Oakland A’s | 0.2% | 0.2% | 0.0% | 1.1% | 0.5% | -0.6% |
| Washington Nationals | 0.3% | 0.2% | -0.1% | 2.3% | 1.5% | -0.8% |
| New York Mets | 12.9% | 14.0% | 1.1% | 41.1% | 40.3% | -0.8% |
| Philadelphia Phillies | 17.9% | 19.2% | 1.3% | 51.2% | 50.3% | -0.9% |
| Chicago White Sox | 0.6% | 0.0% | -0.6% | 1.5% | 0.0% | -1.5% |
| Colorado Rockies | 0.2% | 0.0% | -0.2% | 2.1% | 0.6% | -1.5% |
| Los Angeles Angels | 6.9% | 8.9% | 2.0% | 21.6% | 19.7% | -1.9% |
| Boston Red Sox | 4.4% | 2.9% | -1.5% | 22.0% | 19.3% | -2.7% |
| St. Louis Cardinals | 27.8% | 20.9% | -6.9% | 43.8% | 40.1% | -3.7% |
| Minnesota Twins | 41.8% | 32.1% | -9.7% | 57.5% | 52.5% | -5.0% |
| San Francisco Giants | 17.2% | 12.4% | -4.8% | 49.4% | 43.7% | -5.7% |
| Toronto Blue Jays | 22.4% | 13.7% | -8.7% | 58.3% | 49.6% | -8.7% |
| Houston Astros | 37.0% | 33.3% | -3.7% | 63.2% | 52.6% | -10.6% |
| Seattle Mariners | 27.4% | 20.7% | -6.7% | 54.7% | 38.3% | -16.4% |
| Miami Marlins | 6.3% | 1.2% | -5.1% | 26.6% | 6.3% | -20.4% |
In terms of playoff percentage, the Royals have experienced the biggest jump in baseball, more than other surprising teams like the Pirates and Brewers. Meanwhile, only the Yankees have seen a larger bump in divisional win percentage.
And it’s more than just the banked wins; ZiPS sees the Royals as having an objectively stronger roster than it did a few weeks ago. In the full-fat ZiPS projections, a handful of the Royals with questions coming into the season have been answering them quite assertively. ZiPS only has the Royals as a .486 team right now, but that’s up 34 points of winning percentage from the computer’s preseason estimate of .452. How large of a swing is that? No other team in the majors has seen a boost of even 10 points in roster winning percentage, with the Nationals second at a mere eight points.
Cole Ragans represents one of the biggest jumps in ZiPS. The Royals may not be racking up wins when he starts, but you can make a reasonable case that he has already outpaced the optimism that many had for him before the season. In four starts, he’s struck out 29 batters while issuing just seven walks and allowing a single homer across 23 1/3 innings. Now, that home run rate is probably too low to be sustainable, but his walk and strikeout numbers aren’t. Ragans’ low rate of free passes isn’t surprising given his boost in first-strike percentage (to 65.3%), which is an important leading indicator of future walk rate. His 68.6% contact rate is also now well below average, and even in these small samples, the difference between that rate and the 78.3% he posted during his unimpressive debut with the Rangers a couple years ago is meaningful. The full model of ZiPS now sees him as a 3.60 ERA pitcher, and he’s already gained just over 1 WAR in 2025 projection.
Meanwhile, Bobby Witt Jr. may have somehow found yet another gear. He already has 13 extra-base hits this season, and just in case you’re remembering that he had a four-game series against the White Sox, only one of those extra-base hits came against a Southsider. His 66% hard-hit rate and 24% barrel rate are borderline video game numbers, and perhaps more importantly, those metrics are far less volatile than more basic stats when we’re talking about small samples. ZiPS gave Witt an aggressive projection coming into the season, but as he’s only turning 24 this June, the computer left open the possibility that he would take another big step forward. Here are Witt’s preseason projection percentiles:
| Percentile | 2B | HR | BA | OBP | SLG | OPS+ | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 95% | 45 | 42 | .320 | .362 | .591 | 159 | 7.6 |
| 90% | 42 | 36 | .308 | .351 | .558 | 149 | 6.6 |
| 80% | 38 | 33 | .290 | .335 | .530 | 137 | 5.7 |
| 70% | 36 | 30 | .279 | .329 | .507 | 128 | 4.9 |
| 60% | 34 | 28 | .271 | .320 | .489 | 121 | 4.4 |
| 50% | 32 | 26 | .265 | .314 | .470 | 116 | 3.9 |
| 40% | 30 | 24 | .259 | .304 | .456 | 110 | 3.4 |
| 30% | 28 | 22 | .250 | .297 | .439 | 104 | 2.9 |
| 20% | 26 | 20 | .242 | .289 | .425 | 98 | 2.3 |
| 10% | 23 | 18 | .229 | .275 | .396 | 88 | 1.5 |
| 5% | 21 | 16 | .221 | .263 | .374 | 81 | 0.9 |
If Witt has really transformed further, from star shortstop to A-Rod, that naturally has a positive effect on the team projections.
Similar to Ragans, the full-season model sees a bigger bump for Brady Singer than the simpler model. He’s still not exactly Edwin DĆaz in the strikeout department, but his contact rate has improved into the low 70s with the commensurate jump in his swinging strike rate, and ZiPS thinks that he’s actually “earned” a strikeout rate of just over 10 strikeouts per nine innings based on how he’s pitched this year. Some of the discrepancy may come from the fact that he’s still tinkering with his repertoire. This spring, Singer was working on some changes to his little-used sweeper and his four-seamer, and the latter has become a significant part of his game plan this year, especially against left-handed hitters. Rather than working as an early-count weapon, the four-seamer is almost used as a change-of-pace pitch in the absence of a really good changeup. That lack of a changeup has likely hurt Singer, who has primarily been a sinker-slider pitcher with low-tier velocity.
Outside of the home runs, ZiPS isn’t as confident about the MJ Melendez breakout, as he’s still a limited defensive player with a rather one-dimensional bat. But it’s worth noting that this wouldn’t be the first time Melendez showed significant improvement after a long stretch of struggling. His .163/.260/.311 season for High-A Wilmington in 2019 pretty much erased him from a lot of prospect lists before his 41 homers in 2021 put him back on.
Given his .483 BABIP, the computer naturally isn’t especially bullish about Nelson VelĆ”zquez. But you can’t win them all! Add up all the smaller gains to players like Adam Frazier, Maikel Garcia, Nick Loftin, Seth Lugo, and Michael Wacha, and you end up with the current Royals roster projecting 5.5 wins per 162 better than before Opening Day, which is about as much as one can do in less than a month of the season.
If we now think about the Royals as a .500 team, it’s enough to upset our preconceived notions about the division. The Twins lost Anthony DeSclafani for the season, representing a real hit to their pitching depth, and the injury to Royce Lewis dims another one of the team’s bright spots. ZiPS liked the Guardians coming into the season, but part of that was the computer being a fan of Shane Bieber, who is done for the year due to Tommy John surgery. Suddenly, the Royals are in the mix, and while they aren’t the favorites to take the division, it’s at least a plausible scenario. Wondering who the Royals might get at the trade deadline is certainly a more fun activity for fans than speculating about who they might lose. There’s a long way to go this season and the Royals still have significant holes that need to be addressed if they shift into more of a win-now mode, but for the first time in several years, it could be a fun summer in Kansas City beyond counting the days until Patrick Mahomes reports to training camp.
Dan Szymborski is a senior writer for FanGraphs and the developer of the ZiPS projection system. He was a writer for ESPN.com from 2010-2018, a regular guest on a number of radio shows and podcasts, and a voting BBWAA member. He also maintains a terrible Twitter account at @DSzymborski.
Congratulations to the Chicago White Sox for being projectionally eliminated from post season contention. We knew you had it in you!
Their 80th percentile outcome is only 64.5 wins. If just about everything goes right they might not lose 100 games. How dismal.
All I have been able to talk about for a week is Bobby Witt Jr. I was really high on him to start the seasonāif you just took his expected stats from last year, he was an easy 6 win player. I said I would take him over any AL player except Aaron Judge, picked him as my MVP candidate. But his start to the season has been is absolutely crazy and he is *still* underperforming his xwOBA. It is irresponsible to compare anyone to Ernie Banks or A-Rod but thatās what this run has been like. Bobby Witt Jr is a monster. He canāt possibly keep this up but he could lose 35 points off his wRC+ and still be the hottest young star in baseball (a lot more if you define āyoungā as excluding Juan Soto and Acuna).
Well there seems to be a 5% chance of 7.6 WAR so itās not ridiculous. Ok not Alex Rodriguez who we wondered whether he was the greatest SS of all time, but a perennial MVP candidate. Thatās a great call on your part
That 95th percentile line was surprisingly low to me. But I guess I don’t have a gauge for what a standard line/deviation looks like.
One vote for 5th/95th percentile lines on the player page?
I mean, its not THAT great of a call lol.
Witt has been hyped as a phenom since highschool and put up a 6 win season last year. Picking him to be MVP is hardly a wild swing. Vegas had him as a top 5 odds favorite to win and its only that lowe because the Royals sucked. If they were good he would probably have been at the top.
Its not like he shotgunned Wilmer Flores for MVP or something haha.
The way I pick them is to see what the most popular picks are in the media and then I canāt pick any of those. Somehow Bobby Witt Jr only got one FG pick for MVP. I think that non-Royals fans didnāt truly appreciate how sustainable Wittās 2023 was, and how there was still a bunch of room to improve. Things that seem obvious to someone who follows the team can get lost when youāre trying to think of all 30. Itās interesting that he was a top 5 pick for MVP per betting lineāinteresting that the gamblers saw something that the media didnāt.
Time will tell if that is a good pick or not, though. Juan Soto looks great as well.
Guys on bad teams rarely ever get much love for MVP from voters so its not too surprising. Dont think it says much about Witt as much as it says about what people expected the Royals to be.
Volpeās still 12 points ahead of him in wRC+, dangit!
ā¦and 116 points behind him in xwOBA.
Royals fans have had a rough few years. I hope they can at least stay in it for awhile and keep things interesting.
Literally just a few years. They were World Series champs 6 years ago. Itās not like the decades before that
Wow was MLB really that awful 6 years ago that the 58-104 Royals won the WS?
(They won in 2015.)
Is this not 2021?
A decade goes by quick, especially if the team is awful!
My brain insisted for a second that six years was hyperbole. Jesus H. Christopher.
I donāt really remember 2020-2022, so it feels a little like 2020 or 2021 to me as well.
Obvs, losing Sonny Gray was a dumb call on the Twins part, but the failure to add any impact bats looks to be the Twins real failure this offseason. I just can’t imagine this offense competing even with Correa and Lewis healthy, unless someone comes up and can contribute
Or replacing Gray with Snell or Montgomery
Trading Polanco was a mistake. These injuries suck but having Correa and Lewis both hurt was not all that unlikely.
Pretty much all moves that reduced their depth have hurt them. Even aside from Correa and Lewis get injured, you’ve got guys like Kiriloff and Buxton too. And you always need pitching depth.
Yep.
I dunno… clearly they need bats, but I think Polanco is cooked.
I donāt think heās done but heās been hurt a lot and his defense is really not good. The Twins were wise to move on from him and turn things over to Julien.
Signing Carlos Santana was kind silly though. Itās like they decided they wanted to spend only a small amount of money on a switch hitter, regardless of whether it was upgrade.
Polanco would have been a perfectly good DH when they didn’t need him in the field. Now they have Jeffers (if he isn’t catching) and whichever of Kirilloff or Santana isn’t playing 1B. Not great.
I have nothing against Carlos Santana, but he’s 38 and has a wRC+ of 11. He’s cooked. I don’t know what they were thinking there, because it was very predictable.
The team is obviously playing a bit above their head, but it seems like they should be right there in the race moving forward. The moves they made in the offseason at least to me seeem solid. Getting Wacha and Lugo, both serviceable backend arms, and Ragans (last year) being the wildcard who has a huge range of outcomes anywhere up to being a 1. Then their bats clicking…yea, I think this team will be fun.
They seem more real than the 2023 Pirates for some reason
Although the Pirates have to be jazzed about Jared Jones so far – I dunno how sustainable it is but man, 12.5 K/9 and 0.8 BB/9 is just sparkling. A 16:1 K/BB will play!
The floor for this team is defined by all those guys. This team should be fun for a good 5-6 innings most night.
The ceiling is going to be defined by the bullpen. McArthur has the air of someone who will always underperform his peripherals but the whole package might enough that he’s pretty good anyway. Unfortunately, there might not be another good reliever on the roster. Those last 3-4 innings are going to be a hard watch.
There shouldn’t be any logical reason to not let the better pitchers go a little bit longer but the modern “insanity” of making certain that the good pitchers throw fewer innings and the less accomplished ones throw more with the belief that this is going to protect the good pitcher’s arms, pardon me while I continue to laugh, is creating an almost comical scenario in which game after game is being blown wide open as soon as the starter is removed. I will use Kutter Crawford as an example. In his 4 starts he has pitched 21 innings, given up 1 run on 9 hits while striking out 24 with a bWAR of 1.5. Pretty good I would say, but the bullpen has allowed 22 runs in just 15.2 innings including blowing leads of 4-0 and 5-0. I accept the 3rd time through the order decline but Cole Ragans 3rd time is still a lot better than Jordan Lyles 1st pitch.
It is only baseball but I have to chuckle when something that is failing far more often than seems statistically possible continues to be considered sound baseball strategy. Tonight it was the Red Sox turn to take advantage of the early removal of the effective starter when Bibee was yanked after 5 and the Soix put 5 on the board against the Guardians pen in the 6th. Sadly I fear the great starter going deep is a thing of the past but it was certainly more exciting for the fan to cheer Jim Lonborg going nine 15 times in the magical season of 1967 than watching a never ending procession of fungible relievers from the 6th inning on in every game.
Obviously I don’t want that to happen, but it would be a fun story, and the Royals have the top players for it with Witt and Ragans. The keys are whether they have to dip into their depth, and if their bullpen can hold up. Both of those are theoretically fixable, but it’s unlikely that they do it at the deadline. Especially not both.
So if they get lucky, yes. But the Guardians still have Jose Ramirez, Josh Naylor, Andres Gimenez, and Steven Kwan plus a couple of potential breakouts like Bo Naylor, and the rotation was never just Bieber. And the Tigers don’t look like pushovers either. If KC wants the top spot, they’d better fight for it.
Tigers are hot right now, but Hinch has cost them 2 games apparently I’ve been hearing and reading. He’s way over managing and PH for guys who are 2-2 with HR and then in same game down by a couple PH’ing for their only other HR hitter.
Its interesting because the Tigers seem to love the singles slap hitters like the guardians and nats …….we all know how that ends up. Doing this on the mound too with insane matchup moves.
Its a weird deal, they had harold castro who hit .300 with nothing but singles and ended up with a .600 ops. They didn’t value him but value some other singles guys can’t figure them out. I want to shake them and tell them if you hit singles you lose.
White sox are extremely injured, feel bad for them. It will be the Royals or the Twins and I’m thinking the royals will take it.
Obviously, you still want as much overall offense as you can get, but a lack of power didn’t stop the 1982 Cardinals from winning the World Series over Harvey’s Wallbangers.
This isn’t 1982. Game is diff
The strongest correlation to WRC+ is slugging %. Tigers are 2nd to last in slugging so where do you think their WRC+ is close too. They always PH for their HR hitters…..not sure why they do it to the HR hitters but not for the singles guys.
The Tigers & Royals are very similar, esp in SP:
They both have an ace- Skubal & Ragans
They both signed 2 veteran SP’s- Flaherty/Maeda for Detroit, Lugo/Wacha for KC
Casey Mize & Brady Singer were 1st rd picks in the same draft & Singer WAS considered for pick 1/1 when Detroit took Mize.
I think Detroit may have more offensive depth..but, the biggest difference is when KC had a top 2 pick, they hit on a superstar in Bobby Witt, Jr. while Detroit took a below average fielding 1B, who seems like he’s also going to be a one trick pony offensively.
I didn’t say anything about the Tigers being better than the Royals or their top-level talent. Just that the Royals will have to battle with them to win the division. It’s basically a given with their rotations being about equal but the Tigers having a better bullpen. Riley Greene, Colt Keith, and Kerry Carpenter especially are the Tigers position player hopefuls. Tork may just be a bust, but those three have everything they need to succeed.
I agree..I wasn’t trying to question anything..Honestly, when I was looking at KC & Detroit, it just struck me how similarly constructed their starting pitchers were..not even quality (though I think they’re probably similar in quality), just the make up of the rotations.
Young left handed ace, 2 cheap veterans signed this off-season, 2018 1st rd pick..Heck, both even have a rookie in the 5th spot (Marsh vs Reese Olson) Do both have a 6th starter that’s a fomer 1st rd pick? (Matt Manning vs one of the other 2018 guys for KC?).It’s bizarre.
Anyway, I think they’re pretty similar overall. SP is even, Detroit has a better bullpen.KC has a better D. I think Detroit has more offensive depth, but, a guy like Witt cancels a lot of that out.
I think it’s mostly that the Royals are a decent team who have remained mostly healthy so far.
The Tigers are probably still at least a year away from a winning record. The Twins have been hit hard by injuries. The Guardians’ ace is lost for the season without much good pitching behind him. The White Sox are both terrible and been hit hard by injuries.
If things keep going in their favor, the Royals could very well win the division. However, their luck could also swing in the other direction at any moment.
Dan,
Is it reasonably easy to rerun this assuming no Bieber injury?
Iām curious about the impact.
Thanks
I feel like the things that will ultimately derail the royals are the bullpen and depth. They have very little in the way of reinforcements if someone goes down (basically they would fill any spot with a replacement level player or worse) and their bullpen is still frightening. And not in a good way.
But its progress and makes all the doom and gloom about the royals rebuild look a bit silly.