Royals Predictions For 2025 Season: Team MVP, Cy Young, Biggest Disappointment

Thursday is Opening Day, so there's no better time to make some player predictions for the 2025 Kansas City Royals.

This Royals team is coming into the season with playoff expectations, and with good reason. There are talented players up and down this roster--but the team will need to rely on some unexpected contributors if they're going to improve on last year's 86-win total.

Which players will surpass expectations? Which ones will disappoint? Here are a few educated guesses:

Most Valuable Player: SS Bobby Witt Jr.

This is the biggest layup of the bunch. The only way Witt doesn't sleepwalk to the most WAR of the Royals' position players is in the event of an injury (knock on wood). Rather than asking whether Witt is the Royals' MVP, we should be asking if he's going to win league MVP.

A more pressing question might be, "Who will the Royals' most valuable position player behind Bobby Witt Jr. be?" To answer that, and to provide a backup answer in the crushing event of an injury, let's go with a full-on breakout from first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino.

Cy Young: SP Cole Ragans

Though Witt was an easier call, we're running to the podium to turn in our card for Ragans here too. Seth Lugo might have won this award in 2024, but Ragans struck out more batters, joined Lugo on the All-Star team, and projects to be better in 2025 at age 27.

Ragans finished fourth in AL Cy Young voting last year, but at the present moment, he seems to be everyone's third favorite lefty in the Junior Circuit, trailing Tarik Skubal and Garrett Crochet. It will be entertaining to see whether he can somehow assert himself as the top dog among that trio.

Biggest Surprise: SP Kris Bubic

Bubic wasn't guaranteed to have a rotation spot coming into the spring, but he showcased a revamped arsenal and piled up 17 strikeouts in 16 2/3 spring innings. Don't be surprised if he becomes the team's number-three starter by the end of the season, or even (gasp) the number-two.

A long-awaited breakout from the 2018 first-round pick would be quite a story, especially a year removed from Tommy John surgery. And the Royals are banking on it to some degree, or they wouldn't have traded Brady Singer to the Cincinnati Reds.

Biggest Disappointment: RP Carlos Estévez

The 32-year-old Estévez brings more experience to the closer role than Lucas Erceg, but we're predicting that Erceg takes the job before too long. After pitching in the playoffs for the Philadelphia Phillies last season, Estévez has taken longer than the Royals might have liked to regain his velocity.

Even if the velocity returns, Estévez's 2.45 ERA last season was a little too good to be true, and his stuff tailed off at the end of the season. Hopefully, he can at least be a productive setup man, but if there's one Royals offseason move we're worried about backfiring, it's this one.

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