The narrow path to 90 wins

Every year, I put the Royals’ schedule into a spreadsheet and follow a simple formula to create a path to a 90-win season:

• Win or split series at home.
• Win or split road series against weaker teams.
• Don’t get swept.

I don’t figure in any sweeps and split all four-game and two-game series. What I usually end up with is something like a 50-win home record and a 40-win road record.

The same map can be used for different benchmarks. For example, a .500 record is a -9 (9 games behind the pace) on the season. 100 losses is -28. So even in a year like last year, I can see how quickly they are falling behind other target records.

As I was thinking about this year, I thought of a modified quote from the Sermon on the Mount: “Wide is the gate and broad is the path that leads to oblivion, and many ways for the Royals to find it. But small is the gate and narrow is the path that leads to contention and just a few ways for them to find it.”

In other words, a lot of very specific things have to go right for the Royals to find their way to a winning record and a run at the AL Central. There are a multitude of ways for things to go wrong and for the Royals to find themselves losing many, many more games than they win.

So before I give the specific path through the schedule to 90 wins, I want to describe the “narrow path” in each area of the team. (We’ll get to that “broad path” later.)

Note that if literally everything goes right for the Royals, they’d be one of the best teams in the league. That would be true of almost every team, and that never happens for any team. So although they can handle one or less-than-ideal performances, they will have to have a lot more things go right than go wrong to find that narrow path.

The Narrow Path

Starting Pitching

The Royals invested a lot of money improving a disastrous starting staff over this offseason, signing Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha to significant free agent deals. Bumping Jordan Lyles from the rotation also shows a commitment to a higher standard for the starting staff this year.

The ideal is that Cole Ragans turns in 30 starts that resemble his 12 starts from last year for the Royals, making him a Cy Young contender. Michael Wacha, who was 25-6 with a 3.47 ERA over the past two seasons, continues on that path. Seth Lugo continues to solidify himself as a mid-rotation starter with a similar performance to last year (3.57 ERA over 26 starts).

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But the biggest boost for the Royals would be a return to 2022 form for Brady Singer. I think we forget how good Singer was in 2022. He was 6th in the league in bWAR among pitchers. He was also incredibly consistent, with zero “disaster starts” (more runs allowed than innings pitched) on the season. If the Royals got 2023 Ragans, Wacha, and Lugo, along with 2022 Singer, they will have one of the best rotations in the American League, regardless of their fifth starter. In the best-case scenario, their other starters are limited to around 40 starts between them, and Marsh, Lynch, etc., do just fine providing those starts. Heck, if even Jordan Lyles returned to 2022 form, he’d be fine as a 5th starter.

The Bullpen

The bullpen was terrible last year, even before they unloaded Aroldis Chapman, Scott Barlow, and Jose Cuas before the trade deadline and Carlos Hernández imploded. The Royals added four veterans (Will Smith, Nick Anderson, Chris Stratton, and John Schreiber) to go along with late season breakout James McArthur. No one else really had a spot going into the spring. These five guys will be joined initially by Matt Sauer, Angel Zerpa, and Jordan Lyles, with John McMillon, Will Klein, and others possibly coming soon as reinforcements.

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The path to contention would see the four veterans solidify the bullpen, but one or two others step up as the true leaders of the bullpen—James McArthur, John McMillon, and possibly Carlos Hernández or Will Klein seem the most likely candidates. This gives the Royals solid solutions in the middle innings with true shutdown options in the high-leverage innings.

The Position Players

The Royals are more or less betting on the lineup to improve with experience. The position player acquisitions were meant to be more like safety nets for the younger players than people who would be starting in the best-case scenario.

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Bobby Witt, Jr. becomes an MVP candidate, putting in a whole season like his May-September from last year (.288/.330/.517)—or even better. Vinnie Pasquantino turns in a full, healthy season as a steady middle-of-the-order on-base machine with power. Maikel Garcia builds on his rookie season and a great winter ball campaign to become an above-average hitter and a Gold Glove contender at third base. Salvy stops the negative progression and puts up numbers closer to 2022 than 2023. Hunter Renfroe does the same.

The narrow path would certainly include great leaps forward from MJ Melendez or Michael Massey (or possibly Nick Loftin), or the veteran signings would provide quality depth to make up for any underperformance by these guys. Nelson Velázquez shows he can sustain his big boy power, and hits 30-plus home runs.

This scenario has the Royals with a high-powered offense, with 30-plus home run potential from catcher, first base, shortstop, left field, right field and DH, with another 20 or so from second base, to complement defensive whizzes at third base and centerfield.

If all these things came together, it would be a miracle season, rivaling the 1989 Orioles, the 1991 Braves, or the 2023 Rangers. If most of them came together, there’s still a path for a winning record and to threaten for the AL Central. Here’s what it could look like in this schedule.

The Path to 90

March/April

• Target record: 18-14 (91-win pace)
• Home series: Twins, White Sox (4-game), Astros, Orioles, and Blue Jays (4).
• Road series: Orioles, Mets, White Sox, Tigers, and Blue Jays

The first month is one where they would simply keep pace with the “target” record. They’ve got a chance to make up ground with the 4=four-game series at home against the White Sox (target being just 2-2), and they get the Astros at a point when their starting pitching is unsettled due to injury.

May

• Target record: 14-12 (87-win pace); Overall: 32-26
• Home series: Rangers, Brewers, A’s, and Tigers.
• Road series: Angels (4), Mariners, Rays, and Twins (4).

This month is road-heavy, but otherwise seems manageable. They could get ahead by winning the Angels series (rather than the split) or the Mariners or Rays series. The home series, other than the Rangers, are not that difficult.

June

• Target record: 15-14 (83-win pace); Overall: 47-40
• Home series: Padres, Mariners, Yankees (4), Marlins, and Guardians (4).
• Road series: Guardians, Dodgers, A’s, and Rangers.

The “road map” identifies June as the most difficult month. That home schedule (against which they are supposed to go 10-7) is pretty brutal, and even managing the target 5-7 record on the road versus that slate might prove difficult.

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July

• Target record: 14-9 (98-win pace); Overall: 61-49
• Home series: Rays, White Sox, Diamondbacks, and Cubs.
• Road series: Rockies, Cardinals (2), Red Sox, and White Sox.

A relatively easy road stretch combined with all three-game series at home creates a lofty target record for July. At first, I had them winning each of the road series (other than the split in against St. Louis), but when I ended up with 91 wins at the end of the season, I changed this Boston series to a series loss, just to get the July record more attainable. A record like this could make them buyers at the deadline.

August

• Target record: 15-13 (87-win pace); Overall: 76-62
• Home series: Red Sox, Cardinals (2), Angels, and Phillies.
• Road series: Tigers (4), Twins, Reds, Guardians, and Astros (4).

August contains a whopping seventeen road games, so the target record is a little lower, even with anticipating a series split against the Astros and a win against the Reds.

September

• Target record: 14-10 (95-win pace); Overall: 90-72
• Home series: Guardians, Twins, Tigers, and Giants.
• Road series: Yankees, Pirates, Nationals, and Braves.

To finish out the run to 90 wins, they win each of their September home series and split each road trip (Yankees/Pirates and Nationals/Braves).

So far, we’ve looked at an ideal scenario. But, as I’ve said, they are unlikely to find this path. Much more likely is...

The Broad Path

Cole Ragans has two Tommy John repairs in that elbow. He’s never pitched even 100 innings at any level. Wacha hasn’t been an ERA qualifier since 2017 and has averaged only 130 innings the last two seasons. Lugo had a career-high in innings last year, and it was still only 146.1. Both Wacha and Lugo are on the wrong side of 30, when pitchers rarely become more durable.

Singer is more durable, but he’s the biggest question mark. He was confident in his two-pitch mix with very occasional changeup in 2022, and used really good command and movement to outstanding results. His 2023 performance seems to have him searching and desperate. He’s lost some velocity. 2022 could very well end up being an outlier as his career as a starter falls apart.

The lack of durability is likely to expose the lack of depth in starting options. Ragans, Wacha, Lugo, and Singer combined for only 91 starts last year. There’s no real reason to expect that Marsh, Lyles, Zerpa, Lynch, Veneziano, and any other option they come up with will provide enough quality over 60-80 starts to keep the Royals above water.

We hope the floor for the bullpen has been raised, but what if some of the veterans regress and others get injured? Kansas City would see a lot of Carlos Hernández, Sam Long, Steven Cruz, and a parade of other borderline relievers, and then the team once again has one of the worst bullpens in the league. If McArthur turns back into a pumpkin and McMillon doesn’t step up, it’s likely Will Smith would be their mediocre closer until he’s traded at the deadline.

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Any number of things can go wrong with this lineup, like if Bobby’s performance settles into something in between 2022 and ‘23, instead of progressing forward. Maybe Vinnie’s recovery is not really there, and he struggles to hit consistently or with power—or he’s just never the same again, like many guys who have shoulder injuries. Salvy continues to deteriorate and becomes a .215 hitter. Neither MJ nor Massey establish themselves and lose their jobs to Frazier and Hampson, who are also not good. Nelson Velázquez’s 2023 goes down in fluke history with Ryan O’Hearn’s 2018, Kevin Maas’s 1990, and the first two months of Chris Shelton’s 2006 season. Any potential help from Omaha or the bench—Nick Pratto, Tyler Gentry, Nick Loftin, or anyone else—never really materializes. In this case, the Royals once again have one of the weakest lineups in the league.

Of course, health can sink any team. If Bobby Witt misses a chunk of the season, the upside for the team is severely limited. And with so many of their signings with opt-outs at the end of the year, a 90-loss pace could devolve into another 100-loss campaign very quickly with Wacha, Lugo, Singer, and many of the relievers sold off.

But the path to contention, however narrow, does exist. And the week of Opening Day is the time to think about how things can go right, rather than dread all the many ways things can go wrong.

So what parts of the “narrow path” do you think is most likely? Where do you think the Royals will end up this year?