The Royals won 9-4 on Friday night against the Baltimore Orioles to improve to 13-7 for the season. One of the top performers from the game was MJ Melendez, who hit a three-run home run off of Baltimore’s Dillon Tate in the bottom of the seventh, which effectively put the game out of reach for the Orioles.
For the night, Melendez went 2-for-4, which snapped him out of an 0-for-23 skid he had been experiencing since the last homestand against the Astros.
During the most recent New York and Chicago road trip, the Royals outfielder went 0-for-18 with eight strikeouts and only one walk. As a result of that rough stretch, Melendez saw his OPS go from 1.101 after the Astros game to .784 after the final game against the White Sox.
After last night’s big performance against Baltimore, though, Melendez saw his OPS jump back up to .845. He also has a slash of .242/.329/.516 and has four home runs and 11 RBI in 59 plate appearances this season, making him one of the top hitters for the Royals in 2024.
What is interesting about Melendez’s stat line this year is how different he has performed at Kauffman Stadium compared to on the road.
Here’s a general look at Melendez’s home and away splits this year via Baseball Savant.
It’s not just that Melendez is a stronger hitter at the K. Rather, it’s how significantly better he is when he plays at home in Kansas City than on the road.
Granted, playing at home is always more accessible for players, as they have a far easier time getting into a routine in their comfortable surroundings.
However, are Melendez’s home and away splits just a fluky occurrence because it is so early in the season? Or is it something to pay significant attention to throughout the 2023 season?
Chasing More During the Slump
When looking at Melendez’s advanced splits via Fangraphs, it’s easy to notice that he has struggled with plate discipline away from Kauffman Stadium this season.
| Split | wOBA | BB% | K% | BB/K |
| Home | .536 | 14.0% | 16.3% | 0.86 |
| Away | .076 | 7.4% | 37.0% | 0.20 |
At home, Melendez demonstrates a better eye at the plate, which in turn helps him become an overall productive hitter. On the road, though, his K% is not only 20.7% higher, but his walk rate is nearly half as well. As a result, his 0.20 BB/K ratio on the road is incredibly sub-par, even for the Royals’ standards (they have tended to rate low in this category).
I was curious to see what contributed to his walk and strikeout issues at the plate. Thus, I went to his Pitcher List profile and organized his contact metric game logs into two categories:
1.) From the most recent road trip and 2.) The rest of the season not including that road trip, prior to Friday night’s game.
Here’s a look at his game logs and overall contact metrics (which is up at the top) from the New York and White Sox series.
During that five-game slump, Melendez not only had a whiff rate of 37% but also an O-Swing% of 33.3%, which stands out more. According to Pitcher List, his overall O-Swing% is 28.9% for the year, which is around the 51st percentile. Thus, Melendez is slightly above league average when chasing pitches outside of the zone this year, but he was nearly five percent above his season-wide average in O-Swing% during that five-game stretch.
Now, let’s take a look at how he was doing before the slump.
Not surprisingly, Melendez’s O-Swing% was much lower at 26.7%.
What was surprising to see, though, is that Melendez, during his non-slumping stretch, saw fewer pitches in the strike zone(40.2% Zone percentage in non-slump stretch compared to 45.5% Zone percentage during slump). And yet, despite seeing fewer pitches during the non-slump, Melendez whiffed less at 28.4%.
Thus, it wasn’t just Melendez pressing and swinging more out of the zone that contributed to his struggles. During that stretch, he wasn’t hitting the ball, even when it was thrown in the strike zone. His zone wOBA charts via Savant seem to confirm that.
On those pitches middle-middle, Melendez has posted a .848 wOBA at Kauffman.
On the road? His wOBA was .000. Not doing damage on those pitches down the heart of the plate is a recipe for a slump, which is precisely what happened to Melendez on the most recent road trip.
It’s also interesting to see the pitch results charts from home and away via Savant when determining takeaways from Melendez’s issues on the road.
Here are his home pitch results chart from this season.
Now, let’s take a look at his away pitch result chart.
It’s interesting to see that at home, Melendez is a lot more efficient at making productive contact on pitches just outside of the strike zone.
At Kauffman, he has a lot more base hits on those pitches on the outside edge. On the road, though, he doesn’t have those kinds of results and, unfortunately, has a lot more strikeouts on pitches that he chased outside of the strike zone.
Then again, though, it also seems like on the road, teams have pitched him more on the edges, and he’s seen fewer pitches in the middle of the strike zone. That could explain why Melendez not only chases more but also whiffs more. Even in the strike zone, it’s easier to whiff on pitches up or down than in the middle.
At the very least, Melendez is not letting opposing hitters get by when they make mistakes in the strike zone. It could be that pitchers weren’t making that many mistakes during his slump, which doesn’t play into Melendez’s strength as a hitter.
Quality of Contact Not the Same on the Road
In addition to chasing and whiffing more, Melendez has also struggled to barrel up balls on the road this year.
According to batted ball splits from Fangraphs, Melendez is not just hitting the ball on the ground more away from Kauffman but also not hitting the ball as hard.
At Kauffman, Melendez hits the ball hard at a 50% rate. On the road, that percentage is down to 13.3%. He also pulls the ball 10% less on the road, which signifies that his pitch recognition hasn’t been as strong on the road as it is at home (and the chase and whiff data also back that assertion up).
Interestingly enough, he is hitting more line drives on the road (20% to 16.7% at home). However, he also is hitting more infield fly balls (33.3%), which typically isn’t great since those types of batted balls rarely, if ever, lead to base hits.
Royals fans can also see his better pull rate at home than on the road when they look at his spray charts from this season.
Here’s a look at both his home and away spray charts from Savant.
Melendez has hit many balls at home down the right-field line or to the right-center gap. Those have produced many of his base hits, including home runs, even though Kauffman Stadium is known for suppressing batted balls in those areas (especially the gaps).
On the road, however, his spray chart’s right field line is pretty empty, and he doesn’t have many balls hit to the right-center gap. The only one he has batted in that area resulted in a base hit.
Thus, if Melendez wants to improve his road splits, he has to be able to make the adjustments necessary to not just pull the ball but hit it as hard as he does at home. The exit velocity charts seem to back up this assertion, too, that Melendez just isn’t hitting the ball as hard on the road, wherever it is in the strike zone.
Here’s a look at his exit velocity zone chart at home.
Let’s look at that same zone chart, but when he has played on the road.
Melendez isn’t producing the same results in exit velocity and batted ball quality away from Kauffman.
Thus, it’s unsurprising that the combo of struggles in batted ball production and whiff and chase increases have led to his poor performance away from Kansas City.
Is This Worth Panicking Over?
It’s still too early to make clear takeaways from these home and away splits. After all, we are just 20 games into the season.
That said, based on his career Fangraphs splits, Melendez has shown over his career to be a better producer at the plate at home than on the road.
The most significant difference for Melendez on the road in his career is the same issue Royals fans have seen this season:
He strikes out a lot more on the road. His K% is 6.7% higher on the road than at Kauffman. Consequently, his BB/K ratio is 12 points lower, and his wRC+ is 26 points lower.
Thus, Melendez and the Royals hitting coaches may need to figure out what Melendez does at home that could be transitioned to a game away from the K. That could involve adjusting how he views the pitcher’s release points at different stadiums (which have different dimensions and backdrops) or pre-game routines, whether it’s at the ballpark or even leading up to arriving at the ballpark.
While it’s not a significant issue (the BB% stays around the same on the road), it could stunt Melendez from breaking out as a hitter this season and beyond.
That would be a shame, especially with how fun Melendez has been as a player this season at Kauffman Stadium.
Photo Credit: Scott Galvin-USA TODAY Sports
