The Kansas City Royals wanted to add pitching help and improve their outfield this offseason. The rotation looks to be improved by a large margin, but what’s happened to the outfield so far? The front office has added Hunter Renfroe on a two-year, $13 million contract. Tyler Gentry was added to the 40-man roster and long-time headache, Edward Olivares, was recently traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Outside of those three transactions, the outfield is more or less the same from last season. Despite talk of MJ Melendez in trades, he remains in town for now. Renfroe is a nice addition. He’s been a valuable MLB player, accumulating 3.2 fWAR over the last three seasons. Last season, however, he trended downward. On the season he was worth just 0.6 fWAR. Although he hit 20 home runs, his season-long OBP was a measly .297. The Royals had one of the worst outfields in the league last season. Kansas City outfielders were worth just 2.1 fWAR. That mark ranked 28th in baseball behind only the Rockies and White Sox.
By OBP, outfielders in Kansas City were the very worst in baseball. Royals outfielders combined to reach base at just a .293 clip. They ranked 25th in walk rate and 27th in batting average. Adding Hunter Renfroe — a veteran outfielder who hit .233 last season — isn’t going to turn the needle much at all in the on-base department. It’s possible that Gentry could, but he’s going to be a rookie next season, and turning around the outfield production can’t fall on his shoulders alone. No, instead it looks like the Royals are banking on a return from last year’s second-half MJ Melendez. They’re banking on Drew Waters improving a full year removed from his oblique injury and they’re banking on Nelson Velázquez continuing on the torrid path he finished last year on.
Can those things all happen in 2024? Here’s what the Farm to Fountains projections say for each Royals outfielder.
MJ Melendez
Projection: 140 G, .250/.328/.440, 20 HR, 27.2% K%, 10.8% BB%
Post All-Star Break last season, Melendez slashed .273/.352/.485. He was worth 125 wRC+ and limited his strikeouts to 26.2%. The projection here puts Melendez somewhere in the middle of his cold start to the season and his hot second half. The Royals would certainly be happy with this sort of production, although it would be nice to see the strikeouts come down a bit more. Melendez does what few other outfielders do in Kansas City: he walks. Royals outfielders do not get on base and Melendez has a nice blend of power and on-base ability. He hits the ball hard and that was always going to come through eventually. We saw it some to close out last season.
Nelson Velázquez
Projection: 125 G, .229/.291/.479, 23 HR, 28.6% K%, 8.5% BB%
Call me a pessimist, but it’s difficult to believe that Nelson Velázquez will ever repeat the torrid pace we saw from him last season. Over 40 games after joining the Royals, he hit 14 home runs and slugged .579. That pace over a full season would be incredible. Compare these two players:
- 40G, .233/.299/.579, 14 HR, 29.2% K%, 7.4% BB%
- 44 G, .262/.353/.597, 12 HR, 26.5% K%, 11.8% BB%
The first player was Velázquez last season. The second is Ryan O’Hearn from his rookie season in 2018. I’m not saying Velázquez is going to become O’Hearn, but it’s worth noting the production isn’t likely to repeat. Without the home runs last season, there wasn’t much for Velázquez to fall back on. He didn’t hit for average, he struck out at an insanely high rate, and he didn’t walk better than average. For that reason, the projection is a bit down on his 2024 potential, although slugging .479 with 23 home runs is still nothing to balk at.
Kyle Isbel
Projection: 135 G, .247/.285/.385, 7 HR, 21.0% K%, 5.5% BB%
Kyle Isbel was valuable last season off the back of a very strong defensive ability. He was worth 1.1 fWAR and has now been worth positive value in all three major league seasons. Sadly, he hasn’t quite put it together at the plate. He slashed just .240/.282/.380 last season, good for a 75 wRC+. There were positive signs, though. Isbel dropped his strikeout rate substantially compared to 2022. He also found slightly more power output, increasing his ISO to .140 last season.
Barring a serious renaissance in his patience at the plate, this is pretty close to what we can expect from Isbel at the plate. He should make enough contact to get his share of hits thanks to a reduced strikeout rate. That along with strong defense is enough to carry him to another starting role next season.
drew waters
Projection: 135 G, .232/.308/.400, 14 HR, 29.5% K%, 10.0% BB%
Waters makes the most sense as a corner outfielder, which we saw the Royals shift to last season. He can still spell Isbel for a day off here and there. Most of last season can be taken with a grain of salt. Waters suffered an oblique injury in spring training and never quite got back on track afterward. Much as we saw so many years with Adalberto Mondesi, oblique injuries can linger well after a player returns from the injured list.
What Isbel lacks in power and patience, Waters can provide. Post All-Star Break last season, Waters cut his strikeout rate from 37.4% in the first half all the way down to 28.5% in the second half. At the same time, his walk rate was up to a respectable 9.8%. A full year removed from the oblique should help Waters substantially.
Hunter Renfroe
Projection: 145 G, .236/.283/.428, 23 HR, 23.1% K%, 7.0% BB%
Admittedly, the Renfroe signing is a bit of a head-scratcher for the Royals. On one hand, he’s a veteran presence and a power bat. On the other hand, he’s just a veteran version of Nelson Velázquez. Even the projection for next season has both players extremely close. Where Renfroe wins out is in the strikeout department. The Royals can use Renfroe as an expensive contingency plan in case Velázquez falls flat out of the gate next season.
Where Renfroe doesn’t offer much value is the on-base department. That’s arguably the biggest area of opportunity for this outfield, which makes the signing all that more confusing. Nonetheless, Renfroe is a veteran presence in a room of otherwise young and inexperienced outfielders. That alone carries some value.
tyler gentry
Projection: 135 G, .246/.304/.390, 16 HR, 24.0% K%, 10.0% BB%
Gentry looked like he was on the fast path to an Opening Day start in the corner outfield next season. That was before the Hunter Renfroe signing. Now, instead, he looks to be on the outside looking in. There’s still a chance he earns a mid-season call-up next season. There’s little left for Gentry to prove in the minor leagues after spending a full season in Omaha last year. He started last year slowly, but by the second half looked back to his former self.
Gentry offers excellent plate discipline and pairs it with good swing decisions and good power. He’s never going to be a 30-home-run hitter, but seems to have a safe floor as a 15-25 home-run hitter. Perhaps most on Gentry’s side are the tools he offers that others in the MLB outfield simply don’t. He’s walked 12% or more at every level of the minor leagues thus far. Even with this projection which expects that to fall substantially, it should still make him one of the better on-base producers in the entire outfield.
