There’s no debating who the Royals’ biggest threat is for the AL Central crown

Did a shudder pass through Kansas City Royals fans when they saw Justin Verlander return to the Detroit Tigers? Sure, the soon-to-be 43-year-old veteran is not the pitcher he was a decade ago, but Verlander was an integral part of those early-2010s Tigers teams that held a stranglehold on the AL Central. Detroit won the division four straight years from 2011 to 2014. Kansas City had the deeper postseason run in 2014, but that Tigers peak is still a defining chapter of my younger baseball fandom.

The Tigers and Royals are ramping up as this season's AL Central favorites.

The Tigers seem like the Royals' biggest threa at taking home an AL Central title in 2026

It is easy to see why the 2026 Tigers feel like they are gearing up for another run, even after fumbling the division race late in 2025. Their offseason work reinforced a rotation led by reigning AL Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal.

The lineup still lacks an unquestionable, lineup-warping thumper, but it does have a deep group of hitters who can get hot in a hurry. Led by outfielder Riley Greene and first baseman Spencer Torkelson, Detroit posted an above-average .730 OPS and ranked 11th in runs scored per game. The Tigers may have stumbled at the finish line, but the bones of a contender are clearly there heading into 2026.

Preseason projections have the AL Central shaping up as a tight race, with Detroit and Kansas City sitting in the middle of most forecasts. FanGraphs projects Detroit at 85-77, with the Royals trailing at 81-81. Baseball Prospectus grabbed Royals fans’ attention when its PECOTA standings flipped the script, projecting Kansas City at 85-77 with Detroit just one game back.

It is close on paper, but calling either outcome a certainty more than a month before Opening Day is a fool’s errand.

If anything, the Royals are the team with something to prove against the Tigers in 2026. Kansas City went 4-9 against Detroit last season, its worst record against any divisional opponent and its second-worst winning percentage in a season series.

With Skubal and Framber Valdez forming one of the league’s nastier one-two punches, Royals bats will have their hands full. Meanwhile, Detroit runs out one of the game’s youngest lineups, and Kansas City will need its veteran rotation to keep games from snowballing.

The two clubs will not have to wait long to see each other. Detroit hosts a three-game set from April 14-16, and the Tigers will not visit Kauffman Stadium until early May for a weekend series. By then, the standings could look completely different, and any talk of a clear AL Central favorite might already feel outdated.

For now, with both fanbases’ optimism running hot, it is easy to draw a path for either Detroit or Kansas City to win the division. The hope in Kansas City, of course, is that 2026 is the year the Royals grab the inside track early and hold off the Tigers and everyone else across the long 162-game marathon.