Royals' Roster Flexibility Key To Postseason Return

Kansas City Royals skipper Matt Quatraro and his staff deserve credit for prioritizing roster flexibility, and they should utilize that strategy to its fullest to avoid major holes in the Royals lineup this year. Left fielder MJ Melendez has the worst OPS - .350 - among all Royals with at least 20 at-bats in this young season. Center fielder Kyle Isbel isn't far behind, with a .450 OPS through 20 AB's. On the bright side, Maikel Garcia, who is typically at third base for the Royals, has played in center field and looked okay defensively, while offensively looking like he should be in the lineup 100% of the time. Garcia has a 1.042 OPS, two homers and six RBI in just nine games and 29 at-bats.

That should be enough in an admittedly small period of time to justify putting Garcia in center, especially when looking at other outfielders' offensive production around the league. Comparing KC's outfielders' offensive output to that of other clubs exposes a huge flaw that leads to a low ceiling for this current Royals roster. Maybe some would say it's too early to make radical change, but the Royals played these guys in these spots last year and saw the same thing. The 2024 regular season OPS for left fielders was .714. It was .697 for center fielders. MJ finished the season with a .674 OPS, and Isbel finished at .654. 

Just as an example, the New York Yankees struggled to get offensive output from the left field position, mainly because Alex Verdugo posted a .647 OPS through 149 games as their primary left fielder. This was completely overshadowed by Aaron Judge's regular season success and a 1.159 OPS over 158 games as New York's primary center fielder. The World Series Champion Dodgers only got average production from center fielders last season, but left fielder Teoscar Hernandez hit 33 homers, racked up 99 RBI and finished the regular season with an .840 OPS. Comparing any lineup to the Dodgers' seems unfair right now, but the two pennant winners aren't the only teams to outshine KC in this area.

Fellow American League Central clubs that reached the postseason also received solid production from at least one of their left and center fielders. Cleveland didn't get much from center fielders Tyler Freeman and Angel Martinez last year, but Steven Kwan was excellent at getting on base and finished with a .368 OBP and .793 OPS. Tigers left fielder Riley Greene led all of Detroit's position players in WAR with a 5.4 while posting a .827 regular season OPS. In second place on the list of WAR by Tigers position players was center fielder Matt Vierling with a 2.9 WAR and a .735 season-long OPS. No Royals outfielder finished last season with an OPS as high as Detroit's second-best outfielder.

That's every AL team that advanced further than KC last postseason, but it doesn't end there. Baltimore left fielder Colton Cowser was awesome in 2024, posting a .768 OPS and 3.1 WAR over 153 games. Center fielder Cedric Mullins posted a .710 OPS over 147 games. Astros center fielder Jake Meyers struggled to produce at a big-league starter's standard last year, posting a .646 OPS. Yordan Alvarez did more than his part, though, and posted a ridiculous .959 OPS over 147 games as Houston's primary left fielder. Jurickson Profar and Jackson Merrill were both awesome in San Diego, posting an .839 and .826 OPS, respectively. Michael Harris was a tick above average in center for Atlanta, Brandon Nimmo was above-average for the Mets and Philly's Brandon Marsh posted a .747 OPS as their primary left fielder.

Every team that reached the postseason in 2024, aside from the Royals, had a center fielder, a left fielder or both who provided their team offensive production that was above the league average for the position. Coach Q and the Royals cannot let these subpar bats stay in the lineup while hotter hitters wait on the bench. Thankfully, stubbornness is a trait rarely exhibited by the KC coaching staff lately, so if changes are necessary this season, I expect them to be made swiftly. I'm predicting more Garcia in the outfield, as well as more outfield starts given to other solid hitters such as newly acquired lead-off man Jonathan India.

Unheralded Prospect Brewer Hicklen Enjoying All-Time Great Season (In Lexington)

The Lexington Legends are arguably the most exciting club among all affiliates of Kansas City Royals baseball. Lexington isn't rich with Royals baseball history, but it may be the current home of the new wave of talent that will make KC competitive again. Nick Pratto, MJ Melendez, Seuly Matias and others represent a significant portion of the next core of highly-touted prospects, but today we're focusing on somebody who avoided most fans' radar entirely.

Largely unheralded 7th-round draft pick Brewer Hicklen leads the Legends in OPS with an impressive .304/.366/.537 slash line through 72 games at this level. That translates  into a .903 OPS this season, and Hicklen's doing this in a league that's notoriously tough on hitters. 14 dingers and a 0.71 ground-out to fly-out ratio indicates that this 6'2" left fielder gets plenty of lift on the ball. His strikeout and walk percentages could use some work, but the same could be said for every important batter on the Legends roster (more on that later this week.)  When I looked through the stats for previous Lexington rosters, this number really stood out.

Nobody has ever maintained an OPS that high through as many games as a member of the Royals-affiliated Lexington Legends. The Legends were actually affiliated with the Houston Astros prior to 2013, so the last Legend to have a better year with the bat was actually an Astro in-the-making. The guy I'm talking about posted an obscene 1.03 OPS in 2010, then went on to garner MVP votes and All Star accolades throughout a still-impressive MLB career. The last guy to be better at the Single-A level than our guy Brewer Hicklen is currently anchoring the best lineup in the big leagues with his league-leading .655 slugging percentage and the big league's third-best OPS of 1.057. Yeah, we're talking about J.D Martinez.

The devil's advocate in me needs to point out Hicklen's struggles this year before I get all giddy thinking about the future. When he was promoted to the Advanced-A Wilmington Blue Rocks, Hicklen posted a .573 OPS while striking out in more than 36% of his 71 at-bats. There's a reason he spent so much of his year in Lexington, but some of his peripheral stats are encouraging, and he was only drafted last season. There's plenty of improvement that needs to happen before we can call Brewer the next Frank Schwindel (just kidding, maybe), but that's what cheering for prospects is all about.

Let's keep an eye on Nicky Pratto and M.J, of course, and let's hope Seuly gets healthy and gets back to crushing the ball next year. But, let's also keep this Hicklen guy on our radar; he's about to conclude the kind of season that's only typical for a future MLB star.

Doug LaCerte plugs his sports blog articles and gives his opinions on Kanye albums on Twitter @DLaC67. He also still has a Facebook page, I guess.