The Kansas City Royals want to compete—their offseason says as much. They spent money and made trades to get the players they wanted at the positions in which they felt they had a need. They are clearly a significantly more talented team than they have been from 2018-2020, were they were one of the seven worst baseball teams in the league each year.
With that being said, the Royals are not exactly a favorite. Projection systems are not high on them. PECOTA predicts that the Royals will only win 71 games, and Fangraphs projects that the Royals will only win 78 games—and they are on the top end among projection systems.