Perhaps we can use political precedent to glean evidence on how our Royals will perform in 2012. Here's a look back at the Royals' performance in Presidential election years, going back to 1992.

• 2008 (Barack Obama elected with 365 EVs): The Royals went 75-87, which was considered good contextually. The Royals won 56 games in 2005, then 62 in '06, then 69 in '07. Unstoppable! Mike Aviles was probably the team's position player MVP. Team Cy Young? Zack Greinke, though Gil Meche was also pretty good. Ryan Shealy's last season as a Royal. The next year, the Mike Jacobs year, the Royals fell back to 2009.
  
• 2004 (George Bush elected with 286 EVs): This was one of the worst Royals teams ever. The Royals went 58-104, just one year after shocking the world with 83 wins. This was the first year I blogged about the Royals. Wow. Really a fascinating team that deserves to written about in full at some point. Best position player? Carlos Beltran, prior to his being traded. Overall, perhaps Joe Randa. Best pitcher? Zack Greinke.
• 2000 (George Bush elected with 271 EVs): Like 2008, another relative high point, as the Royals went 77-85. The Royals had a good offense back in 2000 (5th in the AL in runs scored), as Mike Sweeney, Johnny Damon, and Jermaine Dye all had big seasons. Mark Quinn and Joe Randa were also near league average. The pitching, however, was awful, as the Royals were second worst in the AL in runs allowed. Position player MVP? Probably Dye. Best pitcher? I guess Mac Suzuki. I guess
• 1996 (Bill Clinton elected with 379 EVs): The Royals went 75-86, their best win total until 1999. The team's best position player was Mike Macfarlane, who slugged .499 as a catcher. Nevertheless, the Royals finished dead last in the AL in runs scored. The run prevention, however, was fairly good, at 3rd best in the league. (So basically the inverse of what the team would be in the late 1990s and early 2000s.) Many Royal hurlers had very good years, and the best was probably Jose Rosado (156 ERA+). Tim Blecher (I always forget he was a Royal) was also good, Mark Gubicza was league average one last time, and Kevin Appier was near his peak. This pitching staff, with the 2000 lineup, could have won a World Series.
• 1992 (Bill Clinton elected with 370 EVs): The Royals struggled in 1992, perhaps deeply bummed out by Paul Tsongas's failure to capture the democratic nomination. The '92 squad won just 72 games, a downturn sandwiched between two over .500 seasons in '91 and '93. The Royals had an extremely balanced lineup that season, with six players posting an OPS between .727 and .776. Alas, they were balanced, just not very good, finishing 12th in the AL in runs scored. Although it was 1992, it was a very 80s lineup, with Brett, Wally Joyner, Kevin McReynolds, Gregggg Jefferies and Jim Eisenreich all playing heavily. The team's best position player, as in 1996, was probably Mike Macfarlane. The team's top hurler was Kevin Appier, who had one of his peak level seasons, posting a 2.46 ERA in 30 starts thanks to a I'm-not-walking-anyone approach.

Going into the 2011 season, not a lot was expect from Alex Gordon. Some crazy fans even suggested that the best course of action may be trading him to another team. We all know what happened. Alex Gordon put up one of the greatest seasons statistically ever as a Royal. The breakout was nearly unprecedented.

To find out how often players have this level of breakout, I wanted to collect players who were similar in age and production. To get the numbers, I used historic Marcel projections. While Marcels may not be the most robust projection system, they are available to back to 1901. Marcels only looks at offensive numbers, so no defensive numbers were involved. I selected players which were similar to Alex in Age, OPS and Reliability (how much of Alex's stats are regressed to league average - basically how may PAs of data are used for the projection). Here are Alex's 2008, 2009, 2010 stats and his projection for 2011:

While he had a decent 2008, his last two seasons, which are weighted more, were not as good.

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So everything else aside, how will he play?

Relevant numbers:

• Career line: .270/.313/.433. Average brWAR 0.9, fWAR 1.6
  
• Career from 2005-2010: .268/.310/.425. Average bwWAR 0.6, fWAR 1.3
  
• 2011: .285/.329/.476. brWAR 3.7, fWAR 2.9

Thanks to a) a bounceback season b) endless playing time and c) the relative decline in offense since the middle of the last decade, 2011 was Francoeur's most valuable season at the plate of his career. Per at bat, only his 70 games in 2005 (.370 wOBA) were better. The truth is, from 50,000 feet he doesn't really seem to have gotten more than marginally more patient, as his 5.6% walk rate was actually down from many of his prior seasons and right in line with where he's always been, but the power that he flashed early in his career returned. Line drives were slightly up and his speed score -- perhaps slimming down helped -- improved.

The splits reveal a familiar Francoeur story. He crushed left-handed pitching, posting a .570 SLG and a .934 OPS against southpaws in 168 PAs. Against righties, he wasn't as good, but he wasn't terrible either, at .279/.318/.445. His career OBP/SLG against righties, including 2011, is .300/.410. This is, overall, encouraging, because he hit better against both handed-pitchers, while maintaining his general trend as a hitter.

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A raft of stories to grab onto as we near ever closer to the start of Spring Training. Positives and negatives included below. It's hard not to feel the enthusiasm.

Beyond our Royals, there's talk of the Cubs playing at the Cell, a look at the young Tribe, and a strange move by Billy Beane.

Royals:

• Royals ink Eric Hosmer, three others to one-year deals | royals.com: News
• Rany on the Royals: For Want Of A Pitcher: Left Wanting.
• With KC's Starters, The Bullpen Needs To Be Deep - Royals Review
• Prospect Q&A: Odorizzi looks to spring | MiLB.com News | The Official Site of Minor League Baseball
• The Royals, spring training and the question of optimism | The Star's Blog on the Royals and Baseball
• 40 Man Roster Review – Jose Mijares - Royals Authority
• Pine Tar Press- The Downside The Infield
• Four areas to watch as Royals start spring training - KansasCity.com
• Time to put up the money Mr. Glass - Kings of Kauffman
  
• Rex Hudler 'humbled' to take over KC's TV broadcasts | royals.com: News
• Royally Speaking: On Gordon And Aging
• Royal Revival: Prospect Countdown #17 Will Smith

Baseball:

• What in the world did Billy Beane just do?
• The Boston Red Sox And 4,828 Fifth-Starter Candidates - Baseball Nation

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Moneyball was a successful movie by commercial standards, and even portrayed our Kansas City Royals! Unfortunately, the big name actors did not play the Royals. However—2012 is the year. This is OUR TIME. If the Royals do something insane and go on to win a World Series in dramatic fashion, we may just get our own movie. Wouldn’t that be something?

But who would play each of our beloved players? I have done some searching, and come up with these names. What do you think?

Eric Hosmer: Cory Monteith

Monteith, as many of you know, is the main man of Glee. Why should he play Hosmer then? Well, he looks like him, for one. Secondly, I think he would be able to handle a leading part in the midst of an ensemble crowd.

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This series is meant to get us to start thinking about the 2012 by way of their divisional rivals. How good are the Royals in relation to their opponents. Today's questions: Are the Royals better than the Twins?

Twins in a box: 2011 record: 63-99. Additions: Ryan Doumit, Jamey Carroll, Josh Willingham, Joel Zumaya. Losses: Joe Nathan, Michael Cuddyer, Jason Kubel, Jason Repko, Matt Tolbert, Anyone Who Liked Joe Mauer's Contract

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