Sizing Up The Competition: Kansas City Royals

2014 Record: 89-73

Runs Scored/Allowed: 651 / 624

Key Additions: Edinson Volquez (SP), Kris Medlen (SP), Alex Rios (OF), Kendrys Morales (DH)

Key Departures: James Shields (SP), Nori Aoki (OF), Billy Butler (DH)

Why They'll Be Better

The Royals have a fairly young roster, with a number of players still potentially on the rise. While it's hard to view any of their offseason personnel swaps as major talent upgrades, they have plenty of returning pieces that could take significant steps forward. Specifically, I'm thinking of Salvador Perez (24), who has the ability to be one of the top catchers in the game, and 23-year-old fireballer Yordano Ventura, who might be the de facto No. 1 with Shields gone.

The Royals have also kept their tremendous bullpen mostly intact, and if that group can pick up where it left off, they'll help the club win a lot of games. Last year Kansas City went 65-4 when leading after six innings.

Why They'll Be Worse

Frankly, there are a lot of reasons to believe the Royals are headed for a drop-off, and perhaps a substantial one.

The biggest thing is that they played way over their heads in 2014. Based on runs scored and allowed, they profiled more like a .500 team (their Pythagerean W/L record was 84-78). Their offense had no real firepower; only two regulars (Alex Gordon and Lorenzo Cain) finished with an OPS+ above 100, and the team ranked last in the majors in home runs.

It's hard to imagine the Royals repeating -- much less building upon -- their success without becoming more of a run-scoring threat. Their offseason moves, which included replacing Billy Butler and Nori Aoki with Kendrys Morales and Alex Rios, were more lateral than forward. If someone like Eric Hosmer or Mike Moustakas finally had a breakout year, that could be a game-changer, but how long have we been waiting for that to happen?

Removing Shields from the front of the rotation severely downgrades that unit, and the starters that GM Dayton Moore added in the departed ace's stead -- Volquez and Medlen -- are question marks at best. This looks to me like a fairly average starting corps that will struggle to consistently hand leads over to that powerful bullpen, especially if the lineup can't increase its output.

What To Expect

The Royals are perhaps the biggest regression candidate among all MLB clubs. That's not meant to take anything away from their charmed run last autumn -- it was nothing short of magical -- but those types of streaks are hard to repeat and I just don't see the infrastructure in place to sustain as a contender. Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me a bit to see Kansas City drop back to fourth or fifth place this year.