The Royals hope a year of maturity helps the offense stick to the planned process. Coach Alec Zumwalt speaks to this:

The Royals players and coaches parted ways for the offseason last October, bruised and beaten to the tune of 106 losses. The players left with game plans individualized for each of them. Some of those were prefaced with hard conversations, said Zumwalt, who described it as “all coming down to self-reflecting with honesty. You can’t lie to yourself.” That’s illustrative of where the Royals are in this process.

KansasCity.com

And it’s those returning players, as much as the new additions, that are needed to turn around the team:

But if that’s going to be realistic, they can’t be reliant strictly on the newcomers. The returners need to show some growth, and part of that growth is just plain maturity. A sign of the latter latter would be maintaining a consistent approach, even if results aren’t following —nay, especially when the results aren’t following. Because that’s when the approach is tested most — and when the consistency of the approach matters most.

The AL Central remains a rather weak division. Even though teams play a much more balanced schedule, they still play in the division quite a bit. The trick will be for a team in the division to win the intra division contest, and then hope everyone else does as well against the rest of the majors. We’ll see if the coaches and the veterans can keep the young talent from pressing if the going get tough.