MVN - Most Valuable Network

Your Shot Has Been Called

The results are in!

The Royals Authority community has spoken. Sixty-eight votes have been cast and here’s what we (as a group) think:

Win Total
79 Wins

The actual number was 78.7. But since there’s no way they can have .7 Wins, we’ll round up and call it an even 79. That would be a ten win improvement over 2007, and the ninth time in team history they gained that much in the win column.

The most optimistic prediction was 94(!) wins. Twenty-one of you said the Royals will finish .500 or better.

The most pessimistic was 65 wins. That was one of two predictions that had the Royals winning fewer than 70 games this year. In other words, 97% of us think the Royals will improve.

I call that the Buddy Theory.

Order Of Finish Of The AL Central
1. Indians (average finish was 1.47)
2. Tigers (1.71)
3. Royals (3.35)
4. Twins (4.09)
5. White Sox (4.34)

Not a big surprise. We’re basically saying what everyone else says: This division is going to come down to a fight between Cleveland and Detroit. Like the top two spots, it could be said there will be quite a battle among the other three teams as they jockey for position in the bottom half of the division. Obviously, we have the Royals as a solid favorite for third.

Even though I picked the Royals fourth and the Twins third, I could see this finish for the division.

Royals Player of the Year
1. Billy Butler (30 votes)
2. Alex Gordon (23)
3. Jose Guillen (6)

I don’t think I can overstate the expectations we have for our young dynamic duo. A full year of Butler, combined with improvement from Gordon and protection from Guillen and we just might find those 10 wins.

Royals Pitcher of the Year
1. Gil Meche (24 votes)
2. Zack Greinke (23)
3. Joakim Soria (9)
4. Brian Bannister (8)

Split decision! Having two pitchers contending for this award can be a very good thing, I think. Unless it’s like a Mark Redman/Runelvys Hernandez competition. In that case, forget I mentioned it.

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Also as part of this exercise, I polled several other guys who follow the Royals. (I’d say they were fans, but there are a couple living, breathing journalists in this group.) If you made your predictions last week, it will be kind of fun to see how you compare.

Will McDonald of Royals Review:

- 79 Wins
- Indians, Tigers, White Sox, Royals, Twins
- Alex Gordon
- Zack Greinke

Joe Hamrahi of Baseball Digest Daily:

- 74 Wins
- Tigers, Indians, Royals, White Sox, Twins
- Billy Butler
- Gil Meche

Sam Mellinger of The Kansas City Star and Ball Star:

- 76 Wins
- Indians, Tigers, White Sox, Royals, Twins
- Jose Guillen
- Gil Meche

The Tao of In Dayton We Trust:

- 79 Wins
- Tigers, Indians, Royals, White Sox, Twins
- Billy Butler
- Gil Meche

Lee Warren of Royal Reflections:

- 77 Wins
- Indians, Tigers, White Sox, Royals, Twins
- Billy Butler
- Zack Greinke

Voros McCracken of his own blog and Baseball Digest Daily:

- 76 Wins
- Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago, Kansas City, Minnesota
- Alex Gordon
- I guess I have no choice but to say Brian Bannister :)

Michael Molde of Undying Royality:

- 78 Wins
- Cleveland, Detroit, Kansas City, Minnesota, Chicago
- Alex Gordon
- Zack Greinke

Rany Jazayerli of Baseball Prospectus and Rany On The Royals:

- 75 Wins
- Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Kansas City, Minnesota
- Alex Gordon
- The Baseball Jonah (Zack Greinke)

Big Donkey of Big Donkeys:

- 85 Wins
- Indians, Royals, Tigers, Twins, White Sox
- Billy Butler
- Zack Greinke

Nick Wright of 610 Sports:

- 74 Wins
- Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago, Kansas City, Minnesota
- Billy Butler
- Gil Meche

Thanks to everyone who participated. We’ll file this post away and revisit these predictions at the end of the season.

On to Opening Day!

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 30th, 2008 at 8:25 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.