*** Official 2018-2019 Royals Offseason Repository ***

[dallaschiefsfan]

Originally Posted by FringeNC

I think 2019 could be a really interesting season for the Royals if Ryan O'Hearn can put up numbers close to last year. A .900 OPS guy in the middle of line-up? We could be a real decent team. Probably a fluke last year, but exit velocity numbers were legit, so you never know....

If they sit O'Hearn against a decent amount of the lefties we face, I think you can expect him to repeat. While I don't trust Ned to do so, he really needs to maximize his roster to get them to start turning the corner towards competing again. The Royals don't need to be a .500 team, but they need to start their improvement and that will necessitate a semi-platoon of a guy like O'Hearn. If you play O'Hearn everyday, he regresses as an overall player. I'm not sure he'll ever be the kind of player that can play against lefties all the time.

We have a "not bad" rotation and I think the bullpen could actually become the biggest improvement if one of our rule 5's surprise and Zimmer shocks. Otherwise, the bullpen will be a work in progress for 2019 and we'll be well short of .500. If the bullpen surprises, getting close to .500 is not completely nuts in our mediocre division.