Analyzing the Royals’ second half schedule
Can the Royals win 15 of their next 20?
The Royals come out of the All-Star break in a bit of an awkward position. It is hard to go all in when your team is 3 games under .500 after 97 are in the books. It is also hard to immediately start selling and looking to next season when you are only 4.5 games out of the wild card. Granted, there are five teams between Kansas City and the final spot, so it is fairly unlikely that they get there, but it is not over completely.
Fortunately, the Royals' second-half schedule seems a bit easier than the first half was:
Out of the remaining series, 8 are against teams with winning records and 12 are against teams in the Royals' position or worse. The weighted average win percentage for the remaining games is .495, so on average its a little bit easier than most when there are currently 16 out of 30 teams above .500 so far. The trade deadline hits the day of the first game against Toronto, so there are four series and one game to go before big decisions need to be finalized, and only the Cubs are very good in the full series group, though the Guardians are an important one and not too shabby.
On the plus side, it is not a very difficult schedule overall, especially after you get past Boston. Half of the first six series are tough, but then a lot of opportunities will be available. On the minus side, the Nationals and White Sox both come after the trade deadline. This team is not good enough as currently constituted to think they will make the playoffs. They need at least one outfield bat, we all know that. Does it make sense to go get one? I do not think so if you are saying right now, today. However, if you go take five of six from Miami and Chicago, all of a sudden the math gets a lot better. It almost forces them to hold for at least another week. A decision needs to be made soon, but there are still multiple options.
These next four series are really where that decision has to be made, so let’s look at them in a little more depth.
Miami Marlins 44-51 run differential -55
This is not a very good team, and the Royals need to win this series at a minimum. Here is the problem - the Marlins have been playing a lot better as of late. Miami has only lost one of its last seven series, going 15-7 since June 20th. Still, their record, including Pythagorean and BaseRuns and projected rest of season, all say this team is bad and the Royals need to take advantage. They are not very good at scoring runs, nor are they very good at preventing runs. It is just kind of a “meh” team. Their leading pitcher in fWAR is Janson Junk, a pitcher that was on waivers twice last year, if that tells you anything about how it is going. It is in Miami, so the Royals will need to get some road wins, but really the way Kansas City has played at home, maybe this is preferable.
Chicago Cubs 57-39 run differential +119
Then another road series, but with one of the best teams in baseball. They have the third-best record and the best run differential in all of the majors. The Cubbies have the second most runs per game, they can really hit the ball Kyle Tucker and Pete Crow-Armstrong both putting up MVP-level seasons to this point. Chicago is more middle of the pack in run prevention, thus the articles about them shopping for Seth Lugo made sense. Shota Imanaga has made three starts since getting back from injury, and Matthew Boyd has been very good this season. After that, their starting pitching is very weak and I think the way it is lining up the Royals will only face Boyd of those two. Expecting the Royals to go take two out of three in Wrigley is not sane, but it is at least possible with how the pitching is lining up, though the Royals also have their own starting depth issues.
Cleveland Guardians 46-49 run differential -45
Stop me if this sounds familiar, the Guardians are pretty good at keeping their opponents from scoring, but they just cannot get enough runs across the plate to win a lot of the time. They are a slightly less extreme version of the Royals, and they will be in Kansas City for this particular series. Cleveland is the opposite of Kansas City in the pitching and run prevention side. Their bullpen is fantastic, and their starters are not very good. Kansas City’s bullpen is mediocre though, and the Guardians’ starters are worse than that, though they have gotten away with it a little bit. Coming off of a 10-game losing streak, they did rack up six wins out of their last seven before the break by beating up on the White Sox and sweeping Houston. This could be a very pivotal series for the boys in blue. Both by Pythag and BaseRuns, they seem to have won four or five more than expected, whereas the Royals are much closer to their expected win totals.
Atlanta Braves 42-53 run differential +2
This is a team that is really hard to figure out. The Braves lost their first seven games to start the season and were 5-13 by mid-April. Since then, they have been a .500ish team, so it is not like they came storming back. They just had a stretch where they lost a series to the Angels, got swept by Baltimore, and then lost to the A’s. That positive run differential in a tough division still gives me a little pause about saying they are actually bad, and their Pythag and BaseRuns records say they should have six more wins. Acuna is back and bopping, which they needed as an offense that has been struggling most of the season. Spencer Strider has had a rough go coming back from last year’s missed season, but Spencer Schwellenbach and Chris Sale are both killing it. This is a dangerous team to have coming to town with possibly large decisions needing to be made. Or they are a good opportunity to pick up a series win. I honestly don’t know.
It is time for the Royals’ front office to earn their paychecks. By the end of the Atlanta series, this team should have bought, sold, or done some combination of the two. The Michael Lorenzen injury has made this an even tougher stretch to navigate coming out of the break. It is a really tough spot for the team to be in, and such a tiny window to find clarity in with only two weeks to the deadline.