Royals vs. Yankees Prediction
As I wrote prior to the AL Wild Card series, the Kansas City Royals have made the playoffs twice since the mid-1980s and went to the World Series in both of those years. They lost to the Giants in 2014 and got it back against the Mets in 2015. Step one of making the World Series was completed on Wednesday when the underdog Royals knocked off the Baltimore Orioles.
Now, they’ll look to knock out the other AL East team in a best-of-five series with the New York Yankees. The Yankees are a big favorite and a bigger favorite than the Orioles were, so we’ll see if they can hold up, even though it has really paid off to be an underdog across virtually all sports here of late.
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The Yankees seesawed back-and-forth with the Orioles for the division crown for most of the season, but never really seemed to be threatened all that much and the betting markets never really treated them as if they were. The Royals were actually tied with the Guardians for the AL Central top spot on August 27, but ultimately finished 6.5 games back.
Frankly, with the way the Wild Card Round went and what we know about the playoffs, it’s almost as if nothing matters from the first 162 games and all that matters is now.
Let’s preview this series, the likely pitching matchups, and find some bets.
Royals vs. Yankees ALDS Schedule
Game 1: Saturday October 5, 6:38 p.m. ET (Wacha vs. Cole)
Game 2: Monday October 7, 7:38 p.m. ET (Ragans vs. Rodon)
Game 3: Wednesday October 9, TBD (Gil vs. Lugo)
Game 4: Thursday October 10, TBD (Cole vs. Wacha) (if necessary)
Game 5: Saturday October 12, TBD (Ragans vs. Rodon) (if necessary)
(all pitching matchups are projected by me until otherwise announced)
How To Watch Royals vs. Yankees
All games on TBS (some on truTV or Max)
Royals vs. Yankees Series Odds
Kansas City Royals +180 // New York Yankees -215
Over/Under 3.5 Games: -290 // +235
Over/Under 4.5 Games: +160 // -190
Royals vs. Yankees ALDS Preview
The Royals are really lucky that their pitching more than held up its end of the bargain against Baltimore. Kansas City was the worst offensive team in baseball in September and it wasn’t even close. Their .257 wOBA was 14 points lower than the White Sox, who ranked 29th. Their 61 wRC+ was 12 points lower than the Rockies and Reds, who were tied for 29th. KC hit 15 homers, tied for the fewest of any team. Their 74 runs were six fewer than anybody else.
But, here they are in the ALDS…after scoring three runs in 18 innings. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that they’ll need to do a bit better than that offensively to pull off this upset.
The Orioles, who scored all of one run in 18 innings, were a better offense than the Yankees in September, posting a .311 wOBA and a 106 wRC+ compared to New York’s .308 and 101, respectively. For the season as a whole, though, New York was third with a .331 wOBA and second with a 117 wRC+, so this should be a step up in class for the Royals pitching staff, at least when it comes to facing Aaron Judge and Juan Soto, who truly carried those numbers.
Judge had a 218 wRC+, meaning he was 118% better than league average offensively. Soto had a 180 wRC+, so 80% better than a league average bat. Others, like Jazz Chisholm Jr., Giancarlo Stanton, Austin Wells, and Gleyber Torres were above average bats as well.
Michael Wacha gets the Game 1 call, with the Royals opting to use Cole Ragans on extra rest in Game 2. That gives Seth Lugo Game 3 and then Wacha and Ragans again if Games 4 and 5 are required. It’ll be interesting to see how pitching coach Brian Sweeney attacks Judge and Soto. Pitching around them won’t always be an option, but the big positives are that Wacha had a 6.6% BB%, Lugo had a 5.7% BB%, and Ragans, who had walk issues late in the year, finished with an 8.8% BB%, so just above league average.
Furthermore, KC’s Big Three in the rotation only allowed 48 homers over 94 collective starts. Forcing the opposition to put the ball in play by hitting it at a really good defense turned out to be a very sound strategy for the Royals and that’s what they will hope to achieve here. You can live with solo homers from Judge and Soto, but you’d prefer not to have the multi-run hits or the start of big innings. Soto is a different beast, but Sweeney was the bullpen coach when the Guardians had tremendous success shutting Judge down in the 2022 ALDS.
By no means are those teams and pitching staffs created equal, but Sweeney has done a magnificent job this season and the bullpen even got on track late in the year with a 2.77 ERA and 29.4% K% in September over 91 innings. They were great in the ALWC.
In terms of the Yankees and their pitching situation, Gerrit Cole will get Game 1 and Carlos Rodon will get Game 2. Nestor Cortes is out, so plan on Luis Gil in Game 3. Personally, I would switch Rodon and Gil to give the rookie a start at the friendly confines instead of Kauffman Stadium, but Aaron Boone has already said Rodon gets the G2 call.
I don’t think people have been paying attention to how good Cole has been of late. He had a major hiccup against the Red Sox on September 14 with seven runs allowed, but he still has a 2.25 ERA with a 2.62 FIP in his last 10 starts dating back to August 4. He allowed eight earned runs total in his other nine starts.
Rodon is worrisome to me. He had a 2.20 ERA in his last five starts, but a 4.67 FIP. He gave up six homers and walked 10 over 28.2 innings, but had 34 strikeouts. The Royals do a great job of avoiding strikeouts, but they do lack power, so it may all cancel out. Still, he’s a guy with an 11% Barrel% this season and a 40.7% Hard Hit%.
Gil gave up four homers in his final regular season start, but had a 3.50 ERA with a 4.14 FIP in 151.2 innings. Since June 20, the potential AL Rookie of the Year has a 5.15 ERA with a 5.32 FIP. If the Royals win this series, it will be what they do against the New York rotation. The bullpen ranked sixth in ERA, but 19th in FIP. In September, they were 15th in ERA and 10th in FIP.
Finally, I couldn’t write a preview for this series without mentioning the home/road splits for the Royals. At home, the Royals batted .260/.322/.420 and on the road, they batted .236/.292/.388. These splits narrowed a good bit as the season went along. They were quite stark throughout about two-thirds of the year.
With Wacha going in Game 1 and several other factors, the Royals are big dogs here. If we take the -215 at DraftKings, the Yankees’ implied win probability is 68.25% according to them. Do the Yankees win this series more than 70% of the time? Part of me wants to say yes, but the Royals pitching staff can tighten things up here. I just don’t think the offense is good enough to carry them through. I didn’t think it was against the Orioles and that was partially right, as three runs over two games was an awful output, but Baltimore was worse.
I think the Yankees do win and advance, but -215 is too rich for me. I am a little bit intrigued by Under 33.5 Runs for the series at -115 and will give that more consideration as we await Saturday’s first pitch.
Lean: Under 33.5 Runs (-115)
