The Nightmare Royals: The Worst Possible Scenario for 2025

I like to think that expectations are a matter of seeing (or believing in) probability. We set goals and expectations based on what we think is most likely to happen. I try to consider as many angles and possibilities and outcomes that may exist, no matter how extreme or unlikely. This involves confronting some dark, sinister thoughts: What if everything goes completely wrong? What if the 2025 Royals aren’t just disappointing, but terrible? Like, really, really bad? What would have to happen for that to occur?

This is a list of ingredients to make a terrifying entity known as the Nightmare Royals. It’s the worst possible outcome that can be reasonably foreseen with the 2025 Royals. That sounds more opinionated than it really is; none of these things are things I think will happen, but any of them could. To get the worst possible outcome, all of these things happen. The coin flips the wrong way every time it’s flipped. The Nightmare Royals aren’t just a disappointment, they’re threatening to be one of the worst teams in baseball.

As a ground rule, I’m not considering injuries. Injuries can’t be predicted with any reliability, and it would be way too easy to use them as an element. Obviously, the Royals would be in a lot of trouble if Bobby Witt Jr., Cole Ragans, Vinnie Pasquantino, and Seth Lugo were all somehow out for the season, but that wouldn’t make for an interesting read. Let’s assume everyone is completely healthy because a scenario where the team is bad in everything but health might be even scarier.

1. Bobby Witt Jr. is only as good as he was in 2023

It’s funny to think of a “nightmare scenario” where Bobby is “only” a 5 WAR player, but the year-to-year difference and its ripple effect on the team would be notable. If the Royals were “barely” a playoff team with Bobby putting up 9-10 WAR, then what would the team be like if he’s only half as good? That all depends on the team around him, of course, which is why I emphasized that *every* condition I’m listing must be met to achieve this “nightmare scenario.” Any player putting up 5 WAR is good, but if he’s the only player even getting close to this mark…that might be an easy sign the team isn’t very good.

2. Vinnie Pasquantino doesn’t improve

In 2024, Vinnie was more of an opportunistic hitter than an outright great one. The 97 runs he batted in accounted for the 20th most in baseball, but the only hitter with 90+ RBIs that had a lower wRC+ was Spencer Steer of the Reds. Vinnie’s 108 wRC+ and 111 OPS+ suggest that he’s a pretty good hitter, but not quite the offensive force he’s been expected to be. In our worst nightmares, Vinnie is no better. I’m not saying he’ll necessarily be worse, but if Bobby gets on base far less often than before, Vinnie’s run-scoring potential drops off as well.

3. Massey and India are both disastrous outfielders

It wouldn’t be fun to keep saying, “X player doesn’t hit well,” so what about adapting to new positions? Massey and India are safe bets to put up league-average production, but it remains to be seen how they’ll adapt to playing the outfield. It goes horribly for the Nightmare Royals. Neither of them can read the ball well and they both get easily lost in Kauffman’s spacious outfield. This leaves Quatraro stuck with a routine headache as he needs both bats in the lineup but can’t use either of them in a DH spot more than once or twice a week, meaning he must use one of them in left field more often than he wants to. Both players put up <1 WAR combined as their horrible defense does more harm than their league-average production does good.

4. Maikel Garcia fails as a utilityman

Here is the other Royals’ candidate for failure due to moving positions. Garcia was already moved to second base and even played one whole inning of right field in 2024 after Paul DeJong was acquired.  Garcia’s defense was tremendous in his rookie season, where his 15 outs above average at third base made up for his otherwise unimpressive hitting. Unfortunately, that defensive prowess didn’t carry into the next year, either at third base or his eventual move to second, as his OAA plummeted to just +2.  That’s still fine, but not nearly enough to offset his 69 wRC+, which made him the worst qualified hitter in baseball. Matt Quatraro has already stated his intent to have Garcia play center field now and then due to Jonathan India’s presence, but Garcia currently has no real experience at the position. There’s no reason to immediately assume he can’t do it, but for the sake of the Nightmare Royals, we’ll assume the super-utilityman Maikel Garcia experiment continues to fail spectacularly, with him being a detriment on offense and defense.

5. MJ Melendez doesn’t improve enough

I’m making up a lot of problems involving players getting worse, which means the made-up solution involves players getting better. No team has nor will ever go without even a single victory, so let’s give the Nightmare Royals something to be proud of: MJ Melendez is not a bad player in this scenario! The swing adjustments work, and he cleans up his defense, posting a 101 wRC+ and -1 OAA. That should be worth about 2 WAR, which is an improvement over last season by about 2 WAR. Hooray! Unfortunately, this wouldn’t be nearly enough to make up for the rest of the team’s downfall, so it will go largely uncelebrated by the fanbase.

6. Cole Ragans loses control

Again, NOT assuming injuries…Ragans just loses feel for his pitches and can’t locate as well. Not atypical for power pitchers, Ragans isn’t the best at limiting walks currently. What if his walk rate goes up some more, let’s say from 8.8% to 10.5%? This would also cut into his strikeout rate, from 29.3% to 27%. These numbers would be like those of Dylan Cease, whose results have fluctuated over the years due to his high-walk, high-strikeout profile. This obviously opens up a lot more variance, but let’s assume that a more erratic Cole Ragans is a much lesser Cole Ragans than last year’s. Ragans is one of the most important and irreplaceable players on the Royals, so even league-average production from him would bleed a few wins from the team, at least.

7. Seth Lugo gets hit around much more often

Two things can be true: Seth Lugo was lucky in 2024, and he would still have been a good pitcher had he not been so lucky. His expected ERA of 3.75 and expected FIP of 3.83 forecast some kind of regression, but if we’re being honest those numbers are plenty respectable, especially over a 200-inning stretch.  Let’s say the luck really flips over for Lugo this season. His batting average on balls in play flips from the lucky .277 of last year to an unlucky .323 this year. The contact hitters make is harder and louder — Kauffman helps prevent home runs but not doubles and triples. All in all, Lugo’s ERA goes up a full point to a flat 4.00 with another 200 innings of work. That production would still be worth the contract the Royals gave him a year ago, but it would be a far cry from the runner-up Cy Young campaign he just posted and further accelerate the team’s demise.

8. The Erceg / Harvey / Estevez bullpen can’t lock down close games

Relievers can be as deceptive as any other player: it might not seem so bad if these three each had low, respectable ERAs — let’s say in the low 3’s. The real blunders would be the save situations. Think of Clay Holmes last year, who was the primary closer for the Yankees until he wasn’t…because he blew 13 saves.  He still accrued 30 actual saves and had an ERA of 3.14. That’s what would happen with the Nightmare Royals. On paper, the back-end of the bullpen might seem fine — good, even! But time and time again, they fail to lock in the tight games, and the Nightmare Royals have one of the worst records in 1-run games.

9. Kris Bubic can’t remain a starter and moves back to the bullpen

There is a lot of smoke surrounding the newly reformed and finally recovered Kris Bubic, but there’s still one potential weakness: stamina. For what it’s worth, Bubic doesn’t have the more obviously effortful stuff like power pitchers do, but there’s still no telling how well he will hold up long-term. Bubic has never pitched 150 innings in a given season, and the only time he got close was all the way back in 2019. If Kris Bubic disappoints as a starter, I can see the timeline going like this: he gets off to a good start and keeps the ERA low even if he doesn’t throw more than a few innings per start, he slowly falls off after April and is back in the bullpen after the All-Star Break. Very much like Jordan Hicks last year. If Ragans and Lugo have the falloffs described above, someone’s going to have to pick up the slack…but if it’s not Bubic, it’s probably not anyone.

10. There are no remedies to any of the above problems

I made up a lot of problems the Royals may have throughout the year and mentioned a lot of players, but I didn’t cover literally everyone on the team. So, there’s one last rule to tie the list together: help doesn’t come. There are no hypothetical saviors that were conveniently left out of the discussion — they just don’t exist at all. This nightmare scenario implies there is no secret Kyle Isbel 130 wRC+ season or Michael Lorenzen Cy Young campaign to balance out the listed negatives. Instead, we get exactly what’s expected from these unmentioned players: not much, and at best not enough. The Nightmare Royals do not get a silver lining, let alone a happy ending. Maybe next year.

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Fortunately, there’s no way all of this would happen at the same time! That’s the first step towards optimism and setting more realistic expectations: considering how unlikely the worst possible outcome would be to happen. The actual, real-life Royals can be expected to be a much happier, better, and fortunate team than the fictional Royals in our nightmares. If not, then I’ll probably have to go into witness protection for writing this.