The Royals surprised the baseball world with post-season runs in 2014 and 2015 with a pretty novel formula at the time - play outstanding defense, put the ball in play and wreak havoc on the bases, and have a shutdown bullpen to protect the lead. While the bullpen still has a long way to go before they are HDH, this year the defense has gotten back to elite levels. But this year’s club is starting to copy the championship Royals in another way - they are getting back to a high-contact approach.
The 2015 Royals were one of the best contact teams ever.