Raise your hand if you remember the 2004 preseason. At that point in my life I had yet to join the SABR revolution and I remember looking at that team and getting somewhat excited. Coming off an 83 win season where they had led the central for much of the season, my young eyes saw many good things to come. I am going to try and find that optimism again 14 years later to see what this team will need to be in contention.

In 2004 the case was this:The lineup is going to be solid since we have a healthy Mike Sweeny now, our new masher in Juan Gonzalez, Angel Berroa was coming off of his rookie of the year campaign (won RoY with a 101 wRC+!), Carlos Beltran is going to turn into a stud, solid Joe Randa. That is a pretty good offense. In hindsight I am not sure how we didn't see the collapse coming. The rotation was going to be the savior Zack Greinke, Jeremy Affeldt was going to step up and be the #2, Jimmy Gobble had shown some good signs in his first season, Darrel May could maybe be okay (ended up being a weirdly bright light in the season), and Dennys Reyes, who I lovingly called the beach ball, could maybe not be terrible as a back end guy. At that point I basically didn't care about relief pitchers, but I also genuinely thought Mike MacDougal would become a stud closer and Curtis Leskanic would be good too because of the previous season.

This year feels somewhat like that 2004 year only going down instead of a team hopefully on the rise, and then I repeated this sort of wishful thinking for several years as I was learning more about advanced stats. It is hard for me to look at this year's version of the Royals and be optimistic about much. Let us look at each position and see if there is a chance things could break right. There are only a couple of black holes, so it is not impossible to see a decent Royals squad this year.

C - Salvador Perez

We're good here, moving on.

1B/3B -Brandon Moss Cheslor Cuthbert/Hunter Dozier

For the Royals to overperform it will not be 34 year old Brandon Moss that we need. The young guys breaking out and stealing the show is the only way this works. Cheslor is 25 and has shown some promise (see 2016 not 17) at the plate. Maybe he comes into some power and can hit .270 with 20 home runs and becomes a slightly above league average hitter. That does not seem insane, it is only asking him to beat his projections by 10 to 15%. Dozier on the other hand has only 21 big league plate appearances, and the hope here is that he reverts to 2016 AAA form and can get on base at somewhere around league average and 10-15 home runs. Doubles will be more important for him to really contribute most likely.

2B - Whit Merrifield

Going to need to repeat last year. That is actually unlikely, but we will need it.

SS - Raul Mondesi

Again, for this sort of fairy tale to happen, Alcides Escobar cannot be very involved, he must be the utility guy. Mondesi showed a lot in Omaha last year, he is not even 23 yet, and the potential could come together at any moment. He will need to significantly outperform the 72 wRC+ projections and be closer to the 119 of the minors last year. If he is good defensively, and can get on base at .300 with 15 home runs, that would be a solid contribution.

OF/DH - Alex Gordon/Jorge Bonifacio/Jorge Soler/Paulo Orlando/a player to be named later

This is the one place there has to be an addition. I don't see an answer on this team for CF. If Paulo can hold down the fort until June, and the Royals are in the race, a trade of some sort is going to be required. The other three could all be valuable. Gordon will need to bounce back in a huge way, maybe not 2014 bounce back, but he is the one guy on this team that could pop a 4+ WAR because he has been there before. His last big season carrying the team to the playoffs becomes the narrative. Bonifacio builds on last year and hits 25 homers and a bit better OBP than last year. Soler gets a full spring training and heading into his peak years (26 next month) takes a big step forward. Soler is projected to basically be league average, but I think for this it would need to be .280/.340/.475 line or better where he at least knocks on the door of 30 homers.I'm going to ignore the lack of trade bait in the Royals organization right now too.

That offense would not be anywhere near the top of the league, but it would be solid top to bottom and be in the upper half for sure. The goal here is everyone contributes. Pitching is actually where the real miracles need to occur, though I am still unwilling to throw Kyle Zimmer in the mix.

Starters - Danny Duffy/Nate Karns/Ian Kennedy/Jason Hammel/mid season upgrade

Duffy is going to need to breakout in a big way. We're talking down ballot Cy Young break out. It could happen, and he needs to get above 180 innings. The order here is important, Karns needs to move up in the rotation by doing something similar to 2015 where he managed a 3.67 ERA over almost 150 innings, but this time he will need closer to 180. That means Ian Kennedy can be the third and just needs to be league average or better, which is definitely possible. Hammel needs to be somewhere near league average as well, looking more like he did two years ago. This rotation overperforms in the first half and they bring in a big arm mid-season to bump Karns, Kennedy, and Hammel down to 3, 4, 5 to end the season and again you could have an above average and consistent rotation.

Relief - Kelvin Herrera and prayer

Herrera will need to be lock down, he has been before, so not a stretch. The rest is going to be tough. Maybe Miguel Almonte and Sam Selman do some good work and Jake Junis moves to the pen to help out. Also, maybe Foster Griffin moves to bullpen for the stretch run (back to starter next spring) and one of Pedro Fernandez, Jake Newberry, Richard Lovelady, or Christian Binford move up quickly this spring.

So, with all of that, and of course there is no way that many things break right, now we only need one more thing. Either the Twins take a step back (likely) and the Indians struggle (less likely), or the Royals take care of the top heavy nature of the game right now. Indians, Yankees, and Astros win their division while the Red Sox go 90+ for first wild card. The team I have postulate could make a run at 90 possibly, but might not need to to squeak into the playoffs. The Twins, Angels, Mariners, and Rangers could all easily fall under 85 wins to give the second wild card a fairly low bar.

There you go, I have attempted to find a Royals playoff scenario. This would be a fantastically fun thing to watch, though you are probably going to have to squint pretty hard.