The Kansas City Royals

The Royals finished with a 71-91 record in the 2011 season. They are a factory for young talent and may be in the contention for a wild card in a few years.

Billy Butler is often looked over when people think of a great DH. Butler has played 4 full seasons and has a .361 on base percentage and a .459 slugging percentage over that time. He has 66 home runs and 162 doubles over that period as well. Eric Hosmer is 22 years old and in his rookie season he hit 19 home runs, and had a .799 OPS. That will only improve with time. Mike Moustakas played 89 games as the third baseman for The Royals and slugged .367 over that time. He is only 23, but scouts say he has a lot of talent.

The Royals traded Melky Cabrera for Jonathon Sanchez. Sanchez had an elevated ERA in 2011. His ERA is 4.26 over his career and coincidental 4.26 in 2011. In 2010 his ERA was 3.07, proving what he can really do. All of the other spots in The Royals' rotation are only question marks. They don't have any great aces or all stars, but they do have a treat in the bullpen.

From 2007-2010 Joakim Soria's ERA was 2.01, but in 2011 it fluctuation to 4.03. Over 5 years Soria has managed to get 160 saves for The Royals and has  9.7 K/9. Jonathon Broxton also joined The Royals' roster this off season. He has a 3.19 ERA over 7 seasons for The Dodgers. He has been having trouble in his past few years with a 4.04 ERA in 2010 and just 12 innings pitched in 2011, but I think the royals can get some production out of him.

The Royals will not win The AL Central this year and probably not for a while. They need to develop their pitching more and have their prospects shine. The Tigers are a definite force to be reckoned with, but in the future The Royals may bring them down. Lets not forget that the all star game will be at Kaufman Stadium this year.