Early ZIPS projections have the Royals as the worst team in baseball next year

Source: www.royalsreview.com --- Monday, November 06, 2017
More evidence for a rebuild? The off-season has just begun, but that hasn’t stopped pundits from projecting next year. ESPN contributor Dan Szymborski has come out with preliminary ZIPS projected standings for next year. (INSIDER) Now there are a lot of caveats with this, the big one that this assumes all free agents are not on teams. So this is the Royals sans Hosmer, Cain, and Moose, which may not be all that unlikely a scenario. With this stripped-down Royals club, ZIPS projects the Royals to 69-93, the worst team in all of Baseball. Near the bottom with the Royals is the Rangers, with 71 wins, and the Tigers and Padres, who project for 72 wins. ZiPS projects the Royals to bottom out, which is no surprise given how much of the team's core talent is hitting the open market. Some players may come back, but K.C. is headed toward a rebuilding phase just as much as the Detroit Tigers are. Whether they truly realize it or think that it's a simple retool is an article for another day. The mean projection for the Royals has them winning the division just 0.4% of the time, with a playoff berth just 0.7% of the time. Unsurprisingly, the Dodgers are projected to be the best team in Baseball with 96 wins, with the Yankees second with 92 wins. What do projections mean with an entire off-season to go? Well obviously teams will make a lot of moves between now and Opening Day, no one is saying for sure the Royals will lose 90+ games. But the ...

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