Any hope for Kansas City Royals in rest of 2023 season? We simulated it in MLB video game

The Kansas City Royals enter the second half of the 2023 season 19.5 games out of first place in the middling American League Central. They own the second-worst record in the AL at 26-65.

They’ve already traded pitchers Aroldis Chapman and Mike Mayers and are expected to sell off more assets before the Aug. 1 trade deadline.

Given how the Royals have struggled this season, is there any hope for improvement in the immediate future? To gauge potential outcomes and trends, I simulated the second half of the Royals season in franchise mode on the MLB The Show 23 video game.

I ran the simulation five times and, suffice it to say, not all variables were perfect. In franchise mode, you can’t start a simulation in the second half based on live results in the first half. Unfortunately, the simulations were often overly generous with the Royals’ first-half win totals, as opposed to the 26 games they’ve actually won.

That and a few other minor quirks aside, this exercise produced some fun trades and intriguing possibilities for the second half of the Royals’ season.

Scott Barlow move seems imminent

Here, the simulation gets it.

Our Royals reporter Jaylon Thompson wrote back in June that Royals closer Scott Barlow was a potential trade candidate. The right-hander has struck out 44 in 33 innings with 11 saves this season.

Barlow was traded in three of the simulations:

• To the Chicago Cubs for RHP Ryan Jensen and INF Kevin Made

• To the Cubs for RHPs Ben Brown and Jeremiah Estrada

• To the Texas Rangers for INF Jonathan Ornelas and RHP Zak Kent

Barlow’s value is at its highest right now, given he remains under club control in 2024. This seems like the most obvious transaction the real-life Royals could make.

Another reliever to watch is Taylor Clarke, who was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers for infielder Jahmai Jones in one simulation.

Crazy trades galore

Then there were the crazy trades, the ones you know only a computer would make.

In one simulation, the Royals shipped first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino to the Red Sox for stud shortstop prospect Marcelo Mayer.

Pasquantino is one of the Royals’ young leaders and his season-ending shoulder injury would inhibit that trade, not to mention that Boston would want more for Mayer.

Only slightly more realistic, MJ Melendez and Freddy Fermin were both traded in four of the five simulation seasons.

Melendez:

• To the New York Yankees for RHP Clarke Schmidt

• To the Milwaukee Brewers for OF Garrett Mitchell

• To the Miami Marlins for INF Jacob Berry

• To the Cincinnati Reds for LHP Andrew Abbott

Fermin:

• To the Houston Astros for OF Jacob Melton

• To the Rangers for RHP Kumar Rocker

• To the Detroit Tigers for LHP Joey Wentz and INF Colt Keith

• To the Red Sox for OF Miguel Bleis

Melendez hasn’t been everything the Royals probably hoped, slashing just .206/.289/.333 with a .622 OPS in his second big-league season. Maybe he could be shopped for another buy-low candidate like Schmidt.

The Show’s hypothetical returns for Fermin are irrational, though. He may be marketed to a contender needing catching depth, but the Royals won’t be getting back players like Rocker, Keith, Bleis and Melton — all top 10 prospects for their organizations in the real world.

Continuing with insane trades, Bobby Witt Jr. was moved in two simulations:

• To the Red Sox for Bleis, UT Enmanuel Valdez and INF Matthew Lugo

• To the Cleveland Guardians for RHP Hunter Gaddis and INFs Jake Fox and Yordys Valdes

In both trades, two players the Royals received were among their former team’s top 30 prospects. Enticing as that is, trading Witt, the hopeful centerpiece of the rebuild, would set the contention timeline back considerably.

Starters bring volume, but not dominance

Zack Greinke, Brady Singer and Daniel Lynch were the clear workhorses of the Royals’ rotation across the simulations, being the only starters near or surpassing 200 innings in all five seasons.

Here’s what their average seasons looked like...

Greinke: 9-10, 30 starts, 188 innings, 46 walks, 114 strikeouts, 3.47 ERA, 1.22 WHIP, 17 quality starts, 187 hits allowed, 73 earned runs allowed, 24 home runs allowed, 2.2 wins above replacement (WAR).

Singer: 6-16, 33 starts, 192 innings, 56 walks, 145 strikeouts, 4.22 ERA, 1.35 WHIP, 17 quality starts, 204 hits allowed, 90 earned runs allowed, 27 home runs allowed, 1.9 WAR.

Lynch: 7-15, 31 starts, 179 innings, 67 walks, 121 strikeouts, 4.71 ERA, 1.50 WHIP, 15 quality starts, 204 hits allowed, 94 earned runs allowed, 24 home runs allowed, 1.4 WAR.

Getting close to 30 starts from these guys, if it happened, would be nice, and the WAR figures show their volume is valued. However only 52% of their outings on average were quality starts — minimum six innings, maximum three earned runs.

The simulations were also a little generous with Greinke’s performance.

In the real world, Greinke was strong in May, posting a 2.30 ERA in 31.1 innings with 25 strikeouts to three walks. However, on the season he is 1-9 with a 5.47 ERA in 92 2/3 innings. He is also on the injured list with shoulder tendinitis.

Singer, already at 5-8 this season, could outflank his sim-projected win total, but his 5.83 ERA needs lowering.

Lynch, at 2-4 with a 4.20 ERA in 47 1/3 innings, has started eight games since coming back from a spring training shoulder injury. He can’t get to 30 starts this season, but perhaps he can do better than the simulation results in a smaller sample size of innings.

The bullpen breakthrough candidate is ... Jose Cuas

If Barlow is moved, the Royals will need someone to step up in the late innings. Right-hander Jose Cuas could be that guy. He was arguably the Royals’ most valuable reliever in four of the five sims.

Across those seasons, Cuas averaged 72 appearances and 89 innings with 25 walks, 78 strikeouts, a 3.65 ERA, 1.24 WHIP and 0.9 WAR.

Salvy being Salvy

If nothing else, the Royals know they’ll get the goods from captain Salvador Perez in the second half. He was consistently their best position player in three of the sim seasons, winning the AL catcher Silver Slugger award in all.

Perez’s averages: 128 games, 498 at-bats, 49 runs, 121 hits, 17 doubles, 24 home runs, 72 RBIs, .244 AVG/.297 OBP/.436 SLG, 34 walks, 74 strikeouts, 2.3 WAR.

In real life, Perez, who was part of the MLB All-Star Game, is hitting .246 with 15 home runs to date.

Royal risers?

Who besides Perez could have a strong finish in 2023?

One would hope the answer is Witt, but there were good-not-great results across the two full sim seasons he gave the virtual Royals. (He was traded twice and demoted once).

Averages: 154 games, 595 at-bats, 65 runs, 130 hits, 23 doubles, six triples, 21 home runs, 68 RBIs, 20 stolen bases, .218 AVG/.252 OBP/.387 SLG, 24 walks, 118 strikeouts, 0.3 WAR.

Comparatively, FanGraphs projects Witt’s end-of-2023 stats to look closer to a .263 average, .309 OBP and 22 home runs, as well as 31 stolen bases and 79 RBIs.

Baseball’s real-life savant seems more bullish than its video game counterpart regarding Witt’s ability to get on base, tally extra-base hits, swipe bags and score and drive in runs.

Meanwhile, Maikel Garcia and Nick Pratto were the only players besides Perez who played more than 100 games the majority of the sim seasons, but their results were largely pedestrian too.

Garcia posted a .233 batting average (.301 OBP) with six home runs and 40 RBIs across 129 games. Pratto landed at averages of .232 for batting average, .297 for OBP, 15 home runs and 48 RBIs in 127 games.

The Show projected success for Nicky Lopez in two seasons — he posted three or more wins above replacement, which was a team-high in one of those simulations. Kyle Isbel also had a solid but not flashy run through the sims — he averaged 1.5 WAR.

Overall, it’s simply going to take the Royals, virtual and real, some time to develop or acquire the right players to power an offense.

Up on the farm

Be encouraged by this Royals fans: In all five simulations, outfielder Roni Cabrera — acquired in the Chapman trade — and pitchers Frank Mozzicato and Ben Kudrna were top 50 MLB prospects at season’s end.

Final record

In the real world, the 2023 Royals are projected to finish 46-116 — 10 games below their prior franchise-worst record of 56-106.

Here are the Royals’ results from each simulated season, and their win total and percentage averaged out:

Season 1: 47-115, .290, 5th in AL Central, 40 games behind 1st — To attain this record in real life, they would need to go 21-50 in the second half

Season 2: 63-99, .389, 4th in AL Central, 22 games behind 1st — 37-34 in the second half

Season 3: 69-93, .426, Tied-5th in AL Central, 15 games behind 1st — 43-28 in the second half

Season 4: 64-98, .395, 4th in AL Central, 29 games behind 1st — 38-33 in the second half

Season 5: 54-108, .333, 5th in AL Central, 37 games behind 1st — 28-43 in the second half

Average: 59-102, .366 — 33-37 in the second half

Can the real-life Royals pull off seven more wins in the second half than they had in the first? We’ll see.

And if not, please remember that this is just a video game.