The 2023 series on team offense continues with the Kansas City Royals. The Royals finished twenty fourth in the majors and twelfth in the American League in 2022 with 3.95 runs scored per game.
This season I am using FanGraphs Roster Resource Depth Charts* as the source of default lineups. That Matt Quatraro batting order is plugged into the Lineup Analysis Tool (LAT) using Musings Marcels as the batter projections. That information produces the following results (Runs per game):
- Best lineup: 4.53
- Probable lineup: 4.39
- Worst lineup: 4.27
- Regressed lineup: 4.21
Using the Musings Marcels for projections, the Royals default lineup only realizes 46% of the optimum order. One of the problems here comes down to four of the starter owning little playing time at the major league level. MJ Melendez, Vinnie Pasquantino, and Michael Massey all posted very good numbers in the minors, not to mention Bobby Witt, Jr. That means there is a tremendous amount of upside in the offense, and the optimum batting order may look very different halfway through the season.
It’s a good year to get excited about the Royals, especially for the long term.
You can follow the data for the series in this Google spreadsheet.
Previous posts in this series:
- Introduction
- Los Angeles Dodgers
- New York Yankees
- Atlanta Braves
- Toronto Blue Jays
- New York Mets
- St. Louis Cardinals
- Philadelphia Phillies
- Houston Astros
- Boston Red Sox
- Milwaukee Brewers
- San Francisco Giants
- Texas Rangers
- San Diego Padres
- Arizona Diamondbacks
- Cleveland Guardians
- Colorado Rockies
- Minnesota Twins
- Seattle Mariners
- Chicago White Sox
- Baltimore Orioles
- Tampa Bay Rays
- Chicago Cubs
- Cincinnati Reds
*This is the best version of this information I’ve seen, with everything you might want to know on one page.