Reason for optimism: The satisfaction and thrill of going to Kauffman Stadium and gazing at the 2015 World Series banner will last for years.
Reason for pessimism: Adding to the collection of banners is unlikely, because this season, the areas for easy year-over-year improvement are absent.
Although the ending to their 2015 season only differed from their 2014 finale by the outcome of the last game of the World Series, the Kansas City Royals' potential for improvement the following season looks very, very different. Although both teams were anchored by a dominant trio of back-end relievers, unnoticed by many was that the 2014 team had an abysmal bullpen, outside of Wade Davis, Kelvin Herrera and Greg Holland. While those three all had ERAs below 2.00, the rest of the pen combined to post a 4.89 ERA, a level of incompetence usually reserved for the worst teams in the league, and therefore very easy to improve upon. And improve it did.
Last year, while the trio did have some regression (ERA rose more than a full point) the rest of revamped bullpen turned elite. Not only did that portion of the pen give up nearly two runs less per nine innings (ERA dropped from 4.89 to 2.91) but they increased their workload by 38 percent. The result: The 2015 ex-Davis, Herrera and Holland bullpen gave up 25 fewer runs than the 2014 version -- in 98 more innings pitched.
