by Jason Wojciechowski
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| Remind me to tell you the story Photo by Jimmy Emerson |
Yesterday, I looked at how we could get the Orioles to 88 wins in 2012. It wasn't easy, but with a little optimism here and there, we got there. Today, it's Kansas City's turn.
The thing about the Royals, who Baseball Prospectus projects to 71 wins, one fewer than the Orioles, is that their division doesn't have the behemoths that the East does. Detroit looks formidable, certainly, with boppers in the lineup and Justin Verlander on the mound, but they're not the Yankees, and behind Detroit, the Central isn't so pretty. Cleveland or Chicago is probably the second-best team in the stack, and nobody thinks that either squad will be fighting for a Wild Card come September, even with Bud Selig's Great Expanded Playoff Adventure coming to pass. Eighty-eight wins might, as we'll see, look unreasonable for the Royals, but it could, if things fall right, actually get the team into the playoffs. (BP has the Tigers projected to 86 wins, a number that might look low to you until you consider the team's outfield, a crew that makes up a full 1/3 of the batting lineup in any game.)
Like yesterday, I'm starting off cheap: the Royals get five wins on run-distribution luck, jumping them all the way to 76. Unlike with the Orioles, I don't see an obvious trade for the Royals to make to shore up a particular position. Any team could trade for a starting pitcher at any time, of course, but figuring that a team will make that kind of move is boring for the purposes of this exercise. So let's try to find twelve wins on the roster as it stands.
