The Royals win the pennant! The Royals win the pennant!

The Royals win the pennant! The Royals win the pennant! Last year, in my MLB preview, I picked the Royals as a sleeper team in the AL. Reggie was kind of enough to remind me how badly I missed that puppy multiple times during the year, deservedly so. After the Royals got out to an okay start, they got crushed the rest of the year. He did fail to mention that I correctly called the Reds, Giants, and Rangers all as potential sleepers, all of whom made the playoffs, two of whom I’m pretty sure made the World Series, and one of whom won it. Sorry, baby brain failure. Plus, I still can’t believe the Giants won with that lineup. Did I mention I predicted Roy Halladay and Felix Hernandez would win Cy Youngs last year, too? I’m so smart. See, wife, I told you so.

Anyways, in beginning research for this year’s preview, I came acrossed a little nuggets that said the Royals are looking to trim payroll to about 33 million bucks this year, or just short of half the left side of the Y*****s infield. Stupid. You might think to yourself, “Self, there is no way the Royals could ever win a World Series. But, Self, if anyone could prove me wrong, it would be Logical Betting.” Self, you would be right. So LB was kind enough to peruse last year’s payrolls (2011 wasn’t available on unofficial sponsor espn.com yet, and I’m too lazy to look them up), and see if we could put together a team that could 1. Win the World Series either last year or this year, and 2. Come in under 35M in salary. And did I. And, since some of the payroll data was updated on guys who had gotten raises this year (e.g., Carlos Gonzalez, Troy Tulowitzski, Joey Votto), this team could probably be even better. Anyways, check out this legit 25 man roster, position by position: