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Kansas City Royals Shortened MLB Season Pick, Odds and Prediction


2020-07-09 12:30:00 EDT

The Kansas City Royals come into the 2020 season looking to shake off a disappointing couple of seasons and getting back near the top of the AL Central mountain.

2019 saw the Royals miss the playoffs for the 4th straight year while also finishing below 60 wins for the second season in a item with a record of 59 wins and 103 losses. The disappointment didn’t stop there as Kansas City was forced to find themselves a new manager with the retirement of Ned Yost on September 23rd. Mike Matheny’s first year as the Royals’ bench boss is far from normal, but only time will tell if the Royals have what it takes to make some noise in the shortened 60-game season.

From a roster standpoint, the Royals were shaken up when longtime catcher Salvador Perez contracted the Coronavirus in early July, but he is reportedly in good spirits and should be cleared to go by the middle of the month or shortly thereafter. KC doesn’t have that bad of a lineup, with Whit Merrifield batting leadoff and guys like Jorge Soler, Hunter Dozier and Alex Gordon make up a strong core of the Royals’ offense as well as newly-acquired third baseman Maikel Franco, who hit .234 with 17 homers and 56 RBIs last season. The issue for Kansas City lies in the pitching rotation as Danny Duffy, Jakob Junis, Brad Keller, Mike Montgomery and Jorge Lopez (who I think make up the five starters for KC this season) all had ERAs above four last year, with Junis owning an ERA above five and Lopez’s ERA clocking in well over six. Numbers like that aren’t going to get you many wins even in a shortened season.

As far as Kansas City’s schedule goes, it will be business as usual for the Royals against the rest of the AL Central against the White Sox, Cleveland, Detroit and Minnesota, with their only winning record coming against the White Sox at 10-9 last season. The Royals will also have dated with the NL Central, including the Cubs, Reds, Brewers, Cardinals and Pirates.

Odds/Prediction: The Royals are one of the biggest longshots to win not only the world series, but the AL pennant at +25000 and +50000 to win the world series and for good reason. The Royals win total is set at 24.5 and while that sounds low, the Royals didn’t do  much outside of signing Maikel Franco to get better and that’s a team that barely won just over one out of every three games. Even in a 60-game season, that equates to 22-23 wins, which is still under the total so I’m going to side with the under on the win total for Kansas City as well this season.

Chris Ruffolo's Free Pick: Under 24.5 Wins

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Chris Ruffolo

Chris joined the Sports Chat Place team in August 2016 and has a proven system that combines multiple analytical and situational statistics and trends to give out thousands of winning picks over the last three years with winning records across all of the top leagues, Follow Chris Ruffolo on Twitter @ruffthepickdawg

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