The Kansas City Royals kick-started their offseason nearly a month ago. The team sent RHP Brady Singer to the Reds in exchange for second baseman Jonathan India and outfielder Joey Wiemer. India was the real focus of the return for the Royals, with good reason. India was named the NL Rookie of the Year in 2021. He’s compiled 7.9 fWAR across four major league seasons. India will be the team’s leadoff man in 2025, but where does Wiemer factor in? A closer look at the data may suggest that Wiemer could have a much larger impact than many realize.

A look at Wiemer’s career thus far and how it led him to Kansas City

Wiemer was selected 121st overall in the fourth round of the 2020 Amateur Draft. He signed for just $150,000 out of Cincinnati and quickly hit the ground running. His first professional season was outstanding. Wiemer slashed .296/.403/.556 with 27 home runs between Low-A and High-A. That showing earned Wiemer the Robin Yount Performance Award, given to the Brewers’ Minor League Player of the Year each season. He was named to MLB Pipeline’s 2021 Prospect Team of the Year. The trajectory was straight up for Wiemer, landing on MLB Pipeline’s Top 100 in 2022. He was the no. 100 overall prospect that year. In 2023, Wiemer moved ten spots on that list to no. 90 and made his Major League debut.

That Major League debut was long, but the results weren’t great. Across 132 games, Wiemer finished the year with a .645 OPS for Milwaukee. Thanks to outstanding defensive value, he was worth 1.1 fWAR, but a 75 wRC+ wasn’t the expectation for the top prospect. Wiemer played 19 MLB games with the Brewers in 2024 with even worse results. In the Minors, he slashed .242/.387/.358 across 53 games for Triple-A Nashville. By midseason, the Brewers shipped Wiemer to Cincinnati for starter Frankie Montas. Post-trade, Wiemer was somehow even worse in what became a lost season for the former top prospect.

Is there any hope for a bounceback from Wiemer in 2025 and beyond?

Despite the lack of power in the Milwaukee farm system last season, Wiemer still posted a .353 wOBA and a 107 wRC+. He walked at a healthy rate but struggled to make hard contact. After the midseason trade to Cincinnati, some of that power started to manifest once again. Wiemer had just a .038 ISO for Triple-A Louisville but saw his hard-hit rate improve to 36.8%. Wiemer’s 90th percentile exit velocity of 105.1 mph was among the best at the level. His 114.6 mph max exit velocity was as well. One industry voice mentioned this offseason that Wiemer’s power is completely gone, but that may not truly be the case.

The power was apparent last season, Wiemer simply can’t make enough contact for the power to shine. Reviewing a lot of the underlying metrics gives plenty of hope that Wiemer can become an impact big leaguer as early as this coming season. Wiemer had just a 73.7% zone contact rate with the Reds. That mark was better before last year’s trade at 82.3%. In a small 21-game MLB sample in 2024, it was up to 87.9%. This is where we can start to dissect Wiemer’s shortcomings and how those fit with the Royals’ organization.

A lot has changed for Wiemer’s batting stance since his breakout in 2021. By 2023, he had changed his stance entirely to be much more upright. His hands were high, and that massive adjustment while adjusting to big-league pitching makes it easy to see why he struggled so heavily at the plate in that debut. Into 2024, Wiemer relaxed his stance some, dropping his hands. By midseason in Louisville, Wiemer’s hands were up once again but the stance wasn’t nearly as upright as we saw in 2023.

Alongside the changes to his stance, Wiemer got extremely pull-happy between his 2021 breakout and the end of 2024. In 2024, with Milwaukee, Wiemer pulled the ball 52.6%. In 2021, that mark was just 45.7%. He stopped taking the ball back up the middle where his power could impact the game. A 38.3% hit rate up the middle in 2021 fell to 34.4% in 2023 and then 19.2% pre-trade in 2024. Wiemer started to open his hips too early, inducing weak contact, tons of strikeouts, and much less power output. Heading to Kansas City, Wiemer comes off a season that saw him strike out 27.6% in Triple-A. His Whiff% was 33.5% and his zone-contact rate was down to 75.9%.

How can the Royals’ strengths help Wiemer to get back on track in the big leagues?

Kansas City ranked third in Major League Baseball with an 87.5% zone-contact rate in 2024. That was up from 17th in 2023, a testament to the job that Hitting Coordinator Drew Saylor and Hitting Coach Alec Zumwalt have done. The Royals’ strength in recent years has been in finding the right pitches to swing at to make more contact and hit the ball hard. Wiemer already hits the ball hard — harder than most players on the current roster. All the Royals need to do is help him to swing at the right pitches and make more contact.

Compare the following Royals and their 2023 zContact% against where they finished in 2024:

Michael Massey: 2023 – 87.7% | 2024 – 94.0%

Maikel Garcia: 2023 – 87.6% | 2024 – 90.7%

Bobby Witt Jr.: 2023 – 85.0% | 2024 – 88.0%

MJ Melendez: 2023 – 76.0% | 2024 – 80.5%

Freddy Fermin: 2023 – 86.7% | 2024 – 88.4%

What about the newcomers last season? Hunter Renfroe’s 86.4% zone contact rate in 2024 was the best mark of his entire career. Tommy Pham’s 89.4% zContact% with the Royals last season was three percent higher than his season mark of 86.5%. A ton of data points to the Royals finding success with raising contact rates among hitters in the organization and that would do wonders for Wiemer’s potential at finding success.

Joey Wiemer’s 114.6 max EV last season would’ve ranked 34th in baseball, just behind Elly De La Cruz and just ahead of Matt Chapman. Only Bobby Witt Jr. (116.9 mph) would’ve ranked higher on the Royals’ roster. That sort of power output is befitting a middle-of-the-order bat. If Kansas City can take that power ceiling and add in more contact, there’s a solid chance that they’ve added not just one valuable hitter in the Brady Singer trade, but two. The defensive value is already clear. Wiemer was worth 7 Defensive Runs Saved and 7 Outs Above Average in 2023 for the Brewers.

That defense gives Wiemer a Kyle Isbel-esque floor with a much higher offensive ceiling to go with it. Even if the trade market and free agency doesn’t prove as fruitful as fans want, don’t discount how impactful Joey Wiemer could be if he’s able to learn from the Royals’ coaching staff and finally break through at the big league level.