Batting around—part 1
An in-depth look at the Royals lineup, beginning with the top half.
If the Royals offense was an ice cream flavor, it would be vanilla.
No chocolate chips. No swirl of fudge. Not even French vanilla. The Royals offense in the first month of the 2021 season has just been plain vanilla.
But vanilla isn’t always bad! If you have fresh toppings or a warm waffle cone (meaning a quality rotation and lockdown bullpen…is the ice cream metaphor working for you yet?) it can be very satisfying.
If you’re looking for a league average offense, you really can’t get much closer than what Kansas City is putting on the lineup card night after night.
For today’s entry, I thought it would be interesting to go down the lineup card to see which spots in the order are performing to expectation and those that are trailing. If you’ve watched this team for any length of time this month, you probably already know the strong areas and the weak parts. Yet there may be one or two surprises. It’s also informational to know just how far ahead (or behind) the team is in certain areas.
Disclaimer! There are a lot of tables within this post. So many, I received a warning from Substack saying that it was too large to send in an email. Fine. So I’m splitting today’s post into two parts. For the first part, I’ll detail one through five in the batting order. Later today, you’ll get the second part which will carry us from six through nine. Believe me, the bottom of the Royals batting order is just as interesting—if not more—that the top.
The lineup card is set. Let’s begin.
Batting first
This is Whit Merrifield’s domain. His name is atop Mike Matheny’s lineup card in permanent ink.
Here’s how the Royals’ everyday leadoff man has performed relative to his counterparts around the league:
I’ve used the word “averagish” to describe the Royals’ overall offense the last few days. That word can apply when it comes to the production Merrifield has provided at the top of the lineup, relative to batting order.
Merrifield has contributed in other ways. The Royals have gotten more stolen bases from their leadoff hitter—eight—than any other club. Also, Merrifield is putting the ball in play like a hitter possessed. He’s striking out just 8.7 percent of the time, ranking him in the 98th percentile of qualified batters. His chase rate remains close to league average, but Merrifield is making contact when he swings at balls in the zone at a rate of almost 94 percent. There just isn’t a lot of swing and miss there, which is a nice attribute for any hitter these days, let alone the guy batting atop the order.
Merrifield would be an ideal leadoff hitter if he could just work a few more walks from time to time. The league average leadoff hitter is walking 9.7 percent of the time. Merrifield is at 6.8 percent, which is actually a little ahead of his career rate. Instead, he’s too dependent on balls in play. After posting back-to-back seasons of a plus .350 BABIP in 2018 and 2019, he’s dropped to a .295 BABIP last summer and is currently at .277. If he gets a few more of those batted balls to drop, he could make this a top 10 spot relative to the league.
Batting second
This is a tale of two hitters. Andrew Benintendi occupied this spot for each of the first 13 games for the Royals and simply didn’t perform. Carlos Santana has hit there for the last 10 and is currently swinging the hottest bat in the lineup. Combine the two and yep…very close to averagish.
It’s solid, if unspectacular production from this spot in the lineup, but because of how the each Santana and Benintendi has performed, it would serve our exercise better to break it out by individual.
Clearly, Santana has found a home. If they had kept Benintendi in this spot, they’d be ranked somewhere around 29th. You don’t want to see how the Baltimore Orioles are doing with their second spot in the order.
As previously noted, since moving to second in the lineup, Santana is swinging the hottest bat in Kansas City. And Benintendi is benefitting from hitting lower.
Batting third
This is an important spot in the lineup, and one where the Royals really lag, production-wise.
Santana hit in this spot for the first six games of the year. Since then, it’s been the home of Salvador Perez. Despite the torrid close to the Royals’ last homestand, he has slumped offensively on the road trip. The small sample sizes serve to torpedo his numbers hitting in this role.
Conventional wisdom has long held you hit your best hitter in the third spot. While conventional wisdom has been blindfolded and turned in circles by the sabermetric revolution and most teams are generally hitting their best hitters even higher in the order, this is still a place where the confluence of on base percentage and power play a massive role. As such, this is the most productive spot in the batting order league-wide. For the Royals, they have yet to see that kind of production from Santana when he was hitting here, or Perez currently.
The storm clouds are starting to collect around Perez’s bat. He’s swinging at roughly the same rate as he has in the past (58 percent of the time), but his contact rate has absolutely cratered. He’s currently at a 67 percent contact rate, almost 15 points off his career mark. It’s still early days and there’s certainly time for that rate to correct itself, but Perez has dug himself quite the early hole to climb out of. He obviously has a handful of the biggest hits of the year, but this is something to watch going forward.
Batting fourth
Now we’re talking…
Over the last 10 games, this has been the permanent home of Jorge Soler. And even though it seems like he’s been hitting the snot out of the ball…wait…it doesn’t seem like he’s been hitting the snot out of the ball. He has been hitting the snot out of the ball. After Wednesday’s display in Pittsburgh, his power production is behind only Santana over the last week-plus for the Royals.
In fact, it hasn’t mattered who Matheny has used to hit cleanup this season. These have been among the most productive bats in the Royals’ lineup.
We discussed this in Thursday’s newsletter, but it bears repeating. Soler has been crushing baseballs. Overall, he ranks fifth in average exit velocity and ninth in Hard-Hit rate in games played through Thursday. These are some names.
Just missing the cut from the above table are Manny Machado, Freddie Freeman and José Abreu. Soler is a legit power hitter. So fun.
Batting fifth
But before Soler was the cleanup man, he was hitting fifth. And things weren’t going so great. Since Matheny moved him up to hit fourth, he’s used an array of players in the fifth spot. Hanser Alberto had three games there when the Royals were facing a cavalcade of southpaws. Since then, it’s been Hunter Dozier and Ryan O’Hearn. No one has distinguished themselves in this position. It’s reflected in the overall numbers.
Benintendi hit here on Thursday and drew three walks. O’Hearn has also had success in a very limited number of plate appearances, but just seems to lack a certain staying power at this point. Although with Soler playing more right field these days, perhaps O’Hearn will continue to get more time as the DH now the Royals have moved on from the National League for the moment.
The Royals’ lineup continues to be right-handed heavy. You have the right-handed hitting Merrifield starting off, followed by the switch-hitting Santana. After that, it’s back to the right side with Perez and Soler. Benintendi doesn’t profile as a fifth place hitter, but maybe his bat can fit here to avoid losing a potential platoon advantage for an extended stretch. Otherwise, it would be incumbent upon Dozier to emulate Soler and start avoiding the fielders with the balls he’s putting in play. More on him in the next entry.
In the top half of the lineup, the Royals are truly getting above average production from only a single spot—cleanup. It’s kind of amazing they’ve been able to pick up 15 wins in their first 23 when the four of the first five spots have performed without true distinction. However, it can pay to be league average, especially in a year when offense is down league-wide. With the first two spots in the lineup hovering around that mark, the top half of the order is still getting things done.
Obviously, timing matters. It’s a good thing for the Royals that Santana has responded so favorably to his move up the order. That’s given the club a much more balanced top half of the lineup over the last 10 games.
Stay tuned! Part two coming later today.