This story was excerpted from Anne Rogers’ Royals Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

KANSAS CITY -- Happy New Year! We just counted down to 2025, and now the countdown toward baseball begins in earnest.

Royals pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training in Surprise, Ariz., in just 40 days. Position players will join them a week later. Opening Day on March 27 in Kansas City is just 83 days away.

Here’s a quick look at the next month -- and season -- ahead:

One (realistic) free-agent target who would still be a perfect fit: RHP Michael Lorenzen
Offensive pursuits aside, the Royals would like to add depth to their pitching staff and add a versatile pitcher who can appear in the rotation or bullpen, depending on the club’s needs. What better fit, then, than Lorenzen, who did exactly that for the Royals last season after they acquired him from the Rangers one day before the Trade Deadline?

Lorenzen made six starts for the Royals, and after a left hamstring injury sidelined him for a month, he came back as a reliever for the very end of the season and postseason. In total, Lorenzen, who turns 33 this week, posted a 1.57 ERA across 28 2/3 innings with Kansas City. And he seemed to like where things were going before he got injured, working well with the pitching coaches and heaping praise on catcher Salvador Perez.

The question remains whether the dollars match up for both sides. If Lorenzen’s plan, as detailed by The Athletic last month, to be a two-way player for a contender for half of the season does not work out, the Royals have two open rotation spots heading into Spring Training. Lorenzen would fit well into one of them while increasing the competition for others -- and bringing his bullpen experience for added versatility.

One player poised to have a breakout season: RHP Alec Marsh
In his second season in the Major Leagues, Marsh posted a 4.53 ERA in 26 games (25 starts), serving as the Royals’ fifth starter for the majority of the year. He threw 129 innings in the Majors, and he also made five starts with Triple-A Omaha in August, after he was optioned to get a mental and physical reset, and was excellent (1.42 ERA in 19 innings).

Marsh will be the first to say he had some good stretches and some bad ones in 2024, but the Royals will be looking for him to take a step forward in ‘25. They’re down a starter after trading Brady Singer to the Reds, and Kansas City will need its other homegrown pitchers to step up and help fill those innings. Count on the 26-year-old Marsh to get every opportunity to do so in '25.

One prospect to watch in 2025: LHP Noah Cameron (No. 12)
If the Royals had suffered some injuries in the postseason, Cameron was among those they would have considered bringing up as a long reliever. Cameron was in Arizona working out at the Royals' facility in case the club ran into a tricky situation. He wasn’t needed, but his inclusion says a lot about how Kansas City views the 25-year-old and his future. The Royals added Cameron to the 40-man roster in November to protect him from the Rule 5 Draft, and he’ll be competing for a spot on the Opening Day roster in Spring Training.

The Royals have a few pitchers with MLB experience that will be competing for rotation spots, so it does seem more likely that Cameron will open the season in Triple-A to pitch in the rotation and be part of their depth. But anything can happen in spring, and regardless, Cameron should make his debut sometime in 2025.

And that will be a big debut to watch. Cameron grew up about an hour north of Kansas City in St. Joseph, Mo., and he was the Royals’ seventh-round pick in the 2021 MLB Draft out of Central Arkansas. He’s dealt with a few injuries in his career, but his strike-throwing ability is consistently one of the best in the Royals’ system. Cameron posted a 3.08 ERA in 128 2/3 innings over 25 starts between Double-A Northwest Arkansas and Omaha in 2024, and he was particularly great after being promoted to Triple-A on July 28. He had a 2.32 ERA across nine starts, with 62 strikeouts and just 11 walks in 54 1/3 innings.

One prediction for the new year: The Royals will win the division
The Guardians (92-69) are the reigning American League Central champions, ending the season with a 6 1/2-game lead over the Royals and Tigers (86-76). Cleveland has been relatively quiet this winter, beyond bringing back Shane Bieber, trading first baseman Josh Naylor and adding Carlos Santana in his place. The Tigers have the reigning AL Cy Young Award winner in Tarik Skubal and might make a splash in free agency, but that’s still up in the air. And the Twins, who finished 82-80 last year, have a bunch of talent on their roster but won’t be spending money, hoping for a big bounce-back year from many of those players to remain a threat.

The point is, the AL Central is there for the taking. And the Royals played their division well last season, going 33-19 -- aided, of course, by going 12-1 against the White Sox. But the Royals won the season series against the Guardians and Tigers, and they went 6-7 against the Twins.

In 2024, the Guardians got out to such a hot start that the Royals couldn’t catch up until the end of August, but then Kansas City suffered injuries and struggled to the end. The Royals had a better rotation than the Guardians last season but a worse bullpen, and the two offenses were pretty similar. Kansas City returns its best three starters, and its offense got better with the acquisition of Jonathan India.

Winning the division will once again be the Royals’ goal. Several veterans are returning, and the young players now know what success looks like -- and what it takes. Here’s thinking the AL Central will be a tighter race to the end of 2025, with the Royals ending up on top.