The 2024 series on team offense continues with the Kansas City Royals. The Royals finished twenty third in the Majors and tenth in the American League in 2023 with 4.17 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: 4.62
• Probable lineup: 4.55
• Worst lineup: 4.34
• Regressed lineup: 4.31

This is not a bad lineup. The Royals project to bat Maikel Garcia first, Bobby Witt Jr. second, and Vinnie Pasquantino third. The LAT bats Garcia ninth, Pasquantino first, and Witt second. The grouping of those three together is right, even though the LAT starts the grouping before the lineup turns over.

The LAT does disagree with the placement of Salvador Perez as the cleanup hitter. Perez is probably the Royals best home run hitter, and those homers should lead to a good number of runs with the high OBPs in front of the veteran catcher. The fourth slot not only cleans, it sets the table for the power at the bottom. Perez no longer does that well.

On the other hand, Perez is the veteran leader of the team, so if he wants to bat fourth, I suspect he’ll bat fourth.

The Royals offense looks up and coming. There are a number of hitters approaching or in their early primes. If this squad matures this season, the projections above might be a floor rather than a ceiling.

You can follow the data for the series in this Google spreadsheet.

Previous posts in this series:

• Introduction
• Atlanta Braves
• Los Angeles Dodgers
• Texas Rangers
• Tampa Bay Rays
• Houston Astros
• Chicago Cubs
• Baltimore Orioles
• Philadelphia Phillies
• Cincinnati Reds
• Minnesota Twins
• Boston Red Sox
• Seattle Mariners
• San Diego Padres
• Arizona Diamondbacks
• Toronto Blue Jays
• Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
• Milwaukee Brewers
• Colorado Rockies
• St. Louis Cardinals
• New York Mets
• Washington Nationals
• Pittsburgh Pirates

*This is the best source of roster information I’ve seen, with everything on one page.