The only place for the Royals to go is up, right? I think they'll definitely improve on last season's dismal 56-106 record, but it won't be a drastic improvement. Even if the Royals could muster a surprise winning season as they did in 2003, they would still finish 4th in the division. All signs point to Kansas City being the AL Central bottom feeders once again as they have lost more than 100 games 3 of the last 4 seasons.

If you studied this team closely last season, you would have found that they couldn't win the first game of a series to save their lives, and it was even worse on the road. The Royals lost in the opening game of a series 38 of 51 times and they lost 20 of 25 on the road in the first game of a series. The 2006 Royals should tip us off fairly early on if we'll be able to ride this trend once again.

Because the Royals were so bad in 2005, when they lost the first game of a series, more times than not, they went on to drop the second game as well, losing 28 of 38 second games. Be sure to take note of their series trends as those going against the Royals in the first 2 games of a series last season would have come out an impressive 63-23.