2016 MLB team preview: Royals a World Series contender again

Opening Day is in the immediate offing, and, in timely fashion, we’re wrapping up our team previews. This year, we've been rolling these out in reverse order of 2015 finish, and now we conclude matters with the World Series-champion Kansas City Royals.

Previous: ARI | ATL | BAL | BOS | CHC | CHW | CIN | CLE | COL | DET | HOU | LAA | LAD | MIA | MIL | MIN | NYM | NYY | OAK | PHI | PIT | SD | SEA | SF | STL | TB | TEX | TOR | WAS

The Royals last season of course barged to 95 wins, negotiated the AL bracket in exciting fashion, and then topped the Mets in the World Series in five games. In doing all that, they brought the belt and the title back to KC for the first time since 1985. This offseason, the Royals have bid adieu to deadline acquisitions Ben Zobrist and Johnny Cueto (bear in mind that KC last season was on pace for 98 wins before acquiring either of those guys), as well as outfielder Alex Rios and righty setup man Ryan Madson. In are starter Ian Kennedy and former closer Joakim Soria. The prevailing objective? Repeat as champions.

Now let’s break it down a bit further for 2016 …

The lineup

1. Alcides Escobar, SS
2. Mike Moustakas, 3B
3. Lorenzo Cain, CF
4. Eric Hosmer, 1B
5. Kendrys Morales, DH
6. Alex Gordon, LF
7. Salvador Perez, C
8. Reymond Fuentes, RF
9. Omar Infante, 2B

Last season, the bat-on-ball Royals ranked sixth in the AL in runs scored and seventh in OPS. Along the way, Cain enjoyed a breakout season with the bat. Sustainable or luck? That Cain remarkably added more than 20 feet to the average distance of his fly balls and home runs certainly bodes well moving forward. Expect him to turn in another MVP-grade season in 2016.

Another big factor in 2015 was Mike Moustakas’ significantly improved production. Last season, he put up an OPS+ of 120 versus a pre-2015 career mark of 82. That’s what’s long been expected of Moustakas, but it took him until his age-26 season. On that front, take a look at his batted-ball distribution from 2014 ...

Source: FanGraphs

Versus 2015 ...

Source: FanGraphs

You should be able to make out much stronger opposite-field and up-the-middle tendencies for the left-handed-hitting Moustakas in 2015. In fact, he reduced his "pull percentage" from 50.5 in 2014 to 39.2 last year. Among other benefits, that takes Moustakas out of infield-overshift territory. Better yet, he also hit the ball with more authority when going the other way. Last season, Moustakas put up an OPS of .860 when hitting to the opposite field. That's versus a career mark of .559. The new approach and the impact with which he executed the new approach raise future expectations for Moustakas at the plate.

Elsewhere, Jarrod Dyson will settle in as the regular right fielder as soon as he recovers from an oblique injury. He obviously offers little in the way of power, but a passable OBP, excellent speed, and plus defense are all hallmarks. That said, he's 31, and fielding is usually the first skill to decline.

Escobar, with his career OBP of .298, is a poor fit for the leadoff spot. Yes, he's got speed on the bases, but he's not, you know, on the bases enough. Given that Gordon tends to run quality OBPs and regularly hovers around 4.0 pitches per plate appearance, he'd be a much better table-setter.

As for weak spots, Infante is an obvious concern. He's put up a miserable 64 OPS+ since joining the Royals, and he's headed into his age-34 season. Not surprisingly, the SportsLine Projection System tabs Infante for a 2016 line of .225/.255/.318, which just isn't acceptable. This may be a hole the Royals can't tolerate for long. Giving Christian Colon a long and uninterruped look at the position may be the right play before turning to external solutions.

The rotation

1. Edinson Volquez
2. Ian Kennedy
3. Yordano Ventura
4. Kris Medlen
5. Chris Young

Kennedy is the big addition here, obviously. To be sure, I don’t like the idea of signing Kennedy, whose appeal pretty much flows from his big 2011 season, to a $70 million contract. To put a finer point on it, Kennedy over the last four seasons has pitched to an ERA+ of 89, which is a paltry figure. The idea is that Kennedy, who has strikeout capabilities, will benefit from the lockdown KC outfield defense, what with his strong fly-ball tendencies. As well, Kauffman cuts down on home runs, and giving up homers has been one of Kennedy’s leading weaknesses. I’m skeptical, but Kennedy does give the Royals some swing-and-miss, and he may get to 200 innings.

Elsewhere, the Royals will be yet again banking on good batted-ball outcomes from Volquez and health from Medlen. Young’s effectiveness when pitching high in the zone should again serve him well, but going into his age-37 season he’s obviously got collapse potential.

As for Ventura, the hope is that his elite velocity will allow him to take the next step toward ace-dom. One key to that will be better using his curve and changeup to set up that mid- to high-90s four-seamer. As with any pitcher who throws so hard despite a small frame, health is concern.

In the end, this doesn’t profile as a top rotation in the American League and may even project as a below-average corps. However, the Royals won a World Series in 2015 and almost won a World Series in 2014 despite sub-optimal rotations. They’ll again hope to paper over this weakness with excellent defense and a powerhouse bullpen.

The bullpen

Suffice it to say, this is a team strength. Gone is Ryan Madson, but replacing him is former closer Joakim Soria, who was quite effective for the Tigers and Pirates last season. Back are stalwarts Wade Davis and Kelvin Herrera. Davis saw a dip in his strikeout rate last season, but he actually enjoyed a small boost in velocity. He figures to continue dominating in 2016. From the left side, Danny Duffy, with his good velo and fastball-slider combo, has the kind of stuff that could play up in a bullpen role. That's indeed been the case in his career, albeit across a very small sample of relief innings. Of all pitchers, Chien-ming Wang has shown outstanding velocity this spring, and he could be an interesting part of the right-handed setup corps. Luke Hochevar is now far enough removed from his March 2014 Tommy John surgery that he should see his effectiveness fully return. In other words, the sensible expectation is that this will once again be among the strongest bullpens in all of baseball.

The outlook

So the various and sundry projection systems don’t think a lot of the Royals for 2016. FanGraphs pegs them for 77-85. The PECOTA system at Baseball Prospectus says 75-87. Our SportsLine Projection System forecasts that the Royals in 2016 will finish 83-79. Obviously, these, to varying degrees, are well out of step with recent history and casual observation.

So what’s going on? Part of it is that the Royals over the last handful of seasons have been very successful at “clustering” their offensive events in a way that maximizes run-scoring. (For example, a half-inning that goes out-out-walk-home run-out yields the same AVG/OBP/SLG as an inning that unfolds out-out-home run-walk-out, but the former accounts for twice as many runs as the latter -- that’s the clustering effect.) Clustering outcomes at either extreme tend not to carry over from season to season, and that’s why these systems “penalize” the Royals. The thing is, the Royals have thrived on this front for the last two seasons. Now, it’s certainly possible to get lucky for two straight years, but it least raises the possibility that there’s something about the current Royals model that allows them to confound these systems. In a recent edition of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, a Sheehan reader wondered whether the Royals’ high contact rates and knack for avoiding the strikeout lend themselves to success at clustering. This strikes me as a very plausible theory and is something to think about as we go into 2016.

Whatever the underlying reasons, I’m more bullish on the Royals than the forecasting systems are. It’s going to be a tough AL Central in 2016 -- the Indians are for real, the Twins have lots of young talent, and the White Sox and Tigers are substantially improved -- but I still see the Royals as getting to a win total at least in mid- to upper-80s, which, at worst, will put them in the AL wild card fray. For something firmer, I’ll say they repeat as AL Central champs, albeit not with 95 wins and especially not by the comfy 12-game margin that they enjoyed in 2015.