2015 Kansas City Royals

The 2014 Royals shocked the baseball universe by sneaking into the AL playoffs, then overcoming a huge deficit against "July's World Series lock," the Oakland A's. KC cruised through a 100 win Angels team before handily defeating Buck's boys in the ALCS. In the end, Mad Bum proved to be too much and the Royals went down in 7 to San Francisco, and essentially everyone assumed the Royals would fade to the middle of the pack in 2015. Instead, they came out blazing, winning the AL Central and also taking the top seed in the AL. Despite their claim to the best record in the AL, they were huge underdogs to the 2015 Blue Jays, who KC dispatched by using their great bullpen to neutralize one of the decade's best lineups.

In the World Series, the Royals took on the fearsome Mets rotation, and didn't pause at all. Winning in five games, Kansas City brought home their first World Series title since 1985, this time without any controversy! Enjoy one of the best surprises in recent memory, the 2015 Royals!

Lineup: The Royals offensive success was predicated on a free-swinging philosophy that put the ball into play with high frequency, sacrificing walks to cut way down on strikeouts. For Showdown, the inevitable errors forced by such strategy does not noticeably show up. Thus, the Royals lineup is less daunting than it was during their World Series run, although it still has enough high OB hitters to be irksome to any rotation. There's certainly plenty of speed here too, although power is lacking. I really like the Lorenzo Cain card, and always think versatile Ben Zobrist is a great Showdown option!

Rotation: The rare World Series champion with a weak rotation. Their ace was Johnny Cueto, who was the Tier 2 terror that he was with Cincinnati. During the season, however, Cueto was very inconsistent and had dreadful KC numbers, which pushed him into the mid-Tier 3 pitching range. He's joined by Tier 3 Edison Volquez and Tier 4 Yordano Ventura, who should be serviceable. Jeremy Guthrie is awful, and was especially hindered by an outing vs the NYY where he gave up several home runs in the first inning. Luckily, they'll have a great bullpen to rely on!

Bullpen: Kansas City is partially (if not mostly) responsible for the "Build the Bullpen" fad seemingly sweeping the majors. The Royals won so many close games and were nearly impossible to beat if they had a lead thanks to ACE level relief pitching. If only Holland was in his Tier 1 2014 form! Still, tons of strikeouts, control, and great charts for a manager here. Wade Davis is arguably the best reliever we've released so far, perhaps even out-doing Andrew Miller with his chart!!!