Royals fans enjoyed a busy week in terms of transactions, which isn’t something that has been said too often about this organization, especially in the John Sherman era as owner (though to be fair, the David Glass era wasn’t great either).

Here’s a list from Preston Farr from “Farm to Fountains” of all the free-agent moves the Royals made last week, highlighted by the total dollar amounts of each contract.

Recapping major off-season additions for the #Royals:
– LHP Will Smith $5m
– OF Hunter Renfroe $13m
– RHP Michael Wacha $32m
– RHP Seth Lugo $45m
– RHP Chris Stratton $8m
– UTIL Garrett Hampson $2m

Total 2024 payroll added: $47m

— Preston Farr (@royalsminors) December 15, 2023

Now there is some nuance with each of the deals, especially the ones that have been made over the past couple of days.

Michael Wacha can opt-out after his first year, and Seth Lugo can do the same, but after his second season. Lastly, Hunter Renfroe’s $13 million deal is technically a one-year, $5.5 million deal with a player option for $7.5 million in his second season, should he decide to exercise that option.

The #Royals have agreed to a one-year, $5.5 million deal with Hunter Renfroe with a $7.5 million player option for 2025, according to a source. Plus $500,000 in performance bonuses each year.

— Anne Rogers (@anne__rogers) December 15, 2023

I have talked a bit about the Lugo deal already on this blog, and I believe he’s a starter that will boost this rotation immediately, though his durability will be a concern as he enters his second full season as a starter at the MLB level. As for Wacha, he deserves a breakdown on its own, especially with how it compares to other free-agent starting pitchers like Lucas Giolito and Marcus Stroman who were rumored Royals targets.

In this post, I want to take a quick look at Renfroe, whose signing by the Royals is a bit more polarizing among the Royals fanbase.

Let’s take a look at why the Royals probably acquired the journeyman outfielder and how Renfroe will impact the Royals organization in 2024 and beyond.

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Renfroe Brings Experience and Power to the Right Field Position

While pitching was the priority this offseason, Royals GM JJ Picollo did mention that they hoped to find a bat in free agency who could help them in the corner outfield positions.

Possible free agents like Tommy Pham, Lourdes Gurriel, Jr., and Michael Brantley were thrown out as possibilities who the Royals could acquire. The three profiled as veteran corner outfielders who could provide pop, but come to Kansas City on reasonable one-to-two-year deals.

In an interview with Fangraphs’ David Laurila, Picollo mentioned that the lack of a veteran presence in the Royals lineup probably had an effect on the Royals’ young core of hitters last season.

“Last year, we were still very committed to the young core that we had on the field. Our expectation was to compete and to get better through the second half of the year, and I think the way we set up the team hurt us early on. We didn’t have a fallback as far as having more veteran players around our young guys. So it fell on all of our young guys, and that made it difficult for them.”

“After a Year on the Job, J.J. Picollo Assesses the Royals’ Progress” by David Laurila; Fangraphs

Thus, it seemed likely that while the Royals had plenty of young talent in the infield and outfield on their 40-man roster, Picollo wanted to add a veteran bat or two to help ease that pressure on their young core in 2024.

Renfroe seems to be the Royals’ solution to that problem, and as expected, there are pluses and minuses with that plan.

In terms of pluses, Renfroe brings much-needed power from the right side of the plate, something that the Royals lacked in 2023 beyond Bobby Witt, Jr. and a streaky Salvador Perez.

Since 2021, the 32-year-old former Mississippi State product has hit 80 home runs and has averaged a 110 wRC+, according to Fangraphs. He has played for four different teams over that timespan (Boston, Milwaukee, Los Angeles Angels, and Cincinnati) with two of the four home parks profiling as “hitter friendly” (Boston and Cincinnati), one being neutral (Angels), and the other being more pitcher-friendly (Milwaukee), according to Savant. So while his power numbers have been boosted by some hitter-friendly home yards, he showed in 2022 that his power production was legitimate in Milwaukee.

Renfroe for his career has done a stellar job of producing solid batted ball metrics, as he sports a career average exit velocity of 89.5 MPH, barrel rate of 11.1%, and hard-hit rate of 40.9%, which are all above-average marks. Even his average exit velocity chart over his career shows solid consistency, though that did dip a bit at the end of the season in 2023, which can be seen below.

As Royals fans can see above, there’s a remarkable consistency in Renfroe’s batted ball exit velocity trends until that 2,000 batted ball mark.

In fact, his power PLV chart from last season also shows a similar trend, as Renfroe produced solid metrics on batted balls before hitting a serious drop toward the end of the season, especially once he made the transition to Cincinnati.

After being above average in expected extra bases added at the beginning of the year, Renfroe saw a sharp drop around the 200th BBE mark and struggled to pull out of it in 2023. His season average was not just below the MLB average, but he hovered between the 10th and 25th percent range from the 300th to 350th BBE mark as well, which is not a good sign.

In addition to the power charts showing serious regression last season, his overall production wasn’t good after the second half. This was especially true in Cincinnati, where he landed after the Angels put him on waivers in an unprecedented roster-cleansing move.

After posting a .246 average and .741 OPS in the first half with the Angels and a .232 average and .726 OPS in the second half in Los Angeles, he saw his average and OPS plummet to .128 and .432, respectively, with the Reds. His lack of power down the stretch contributed to those poor numbers in Cincinnati and explained why the Reds opted to not bring him back for 2024.

The power will be an obvious question mark for Renfroe going into his first season in Kansas City, especially as he transitions to Kauffman Stadium, which is less HR-friendly than other previous home parks for Renfroe over the past three years. Some have mentioned on X that his xHR total of 141 in Kauffman is the second-lowest xHR of any park in Major League Baseball (Comerica Park is the lowest for Renfroe at 139).

That said, I took a look at his spray chart over the past couple of years and the data is a lot more promising and encouraging for his move to Kansas City.

Renfroe profiles as a right-handed pull hitter, which actually fares pretty well at Kauffman Stadium. While there are a few home runs that may have just been long singles or doubles if they were hit at the K over the past two seasons, many of the home runs Renfroe hit in 2022 and 2023 would still have been gone in Kansas City.

That pull-heavy profile from Renfroe (49.2% pull rate last season) shouldn’t be as affected by the K’s spacious confines as some may think. He may be on the lower end of 20 home runs in 2024, but I also think he’ll make up for it with doubles with hard-hit pulled balls down the left-field line.

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Positive Development in Decision Value

On a positive note though from Renfroe’s 2023 is that even though his power declined, his decision-making at the plate did improve throughout the season. That is displayed in his decision value PLV chart below.

Renfore definitely saw some wild swings in decision value, especially around that 600 to 1000 pitch mark where his runs added per 100 pitches hovered below the 10th percentile. However, at one point, he touched the 90th percentile in this category and spent some time down the stretch above the league average in runs added per 100 pitches.

This trend from last season demonstrates that his selectivity improved with the more pitches he saw last year.

Surprisingly, this also seems to be a career trend for Renfroe. Here’s his decision value chart from his season in Milwaukee and it looks very similar to what he did last year with the Angels and Reds.

In this 2022 sample, Renfroe was pretty bad when it came to his decision-making at the plate at the beginning of the year (up to the 600th pitch mark). By the 800th pitch mark though, his plate discipline spiked up positively and he ended up being around a league-average hitter when it came to runs added per 100 pitches from the 1600th pitch mark and on.

This kind of “slow start” trend in his decision value over the past couple of seasons is a big reason why his career BB/K ratio is 0.30 and was 0.32 in 2022 and 0.35 in 2023, which are slightly below average marks. That said, his plate discipline did see higher “peaks” in decision value in 2023 than in 2022, so one has to wonder if the power can rebound in 2024 if Renfroe will be overall more productive as a hitter.

Steamer Projections seem to think so. In a projected 97 games and 408 plate appearances, Steamer is predicting a triple slash of .251/.313/.451 with a .327 wOBA, 104 wRC+, 17 home runs, and 55 RBI.

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Did the Royals Make the Right Move With Renfroe Over Olivares?

In a roster-clearing move, the Royals traded Edward Olivares to Pittsburgh for non-prospect Deivis Nadal, who is 20 years old and hasn’t played beyond Low-A ball yet.

Source: The #Royals are trading OF Edward Olivares to the Pirates for Minor League infielder Deivis Nadal. https://t.co/t9pMAoa7pn

— Anne Rogers (@anne__rogers) December 15, 2023

Technically the move was to make room for reliever Chris Stratton on the 40-man roster. However, the Renfroe deal likely expedited Olivares’ move out of Kansas City.

As expected, many Royals fans went out to bat for Olivares thinking that Olivares could provide similar production to Renfroe but at a fraction of the cost and with less team control. I get that line of thinking, but just looking at Olivares’ profile without looking at the breadth of the Royals’ organizational depth chart misses the bigger picture.

In terms of their decision value charts, both saw big drops around the middle part of the season. However, the highs of Olivares’ decision value chart came at the beginning of the year and failed to get back to those levels, even after he bounced back, as seen below.

Furthermore, in terms of power, Olivares saw a lot more frequent drops in power production on batted balls compared to Renfroe in 2023. Also, he hovered around more league average in his rolling power PLV chart than Renfroe. Renfroe had some major drops but also had some stellar peaks at the beginning of 2023.

At the very least, it’s kind of a wash between Olivares and Renfroe in terms of hitting. There’s obviously more potential for Olivares to hit for a higher average than Renfroe, but the power upside for Olivares isn’t there (or likely to be there anytime soon).

Furthermore, defensively, while Renfroe isn’t stellar, he’s at least serviceable compared to Olivares. Renfroe has been 11 outs below average over his career in right field in 5,520 innings at the position. Olivares? He’s been worth 15 outs below average in 1,182 innings in the outfield over his career.

That’s right. Olivares has been four outs worse than Renfroe despite playing nearly 4,000 fewer innings. That kind of lackluster defensive value cannot be ignored and it’s a big reason why Olivares only commanded a lower-level prospect in the trade with the Pirates (which was pretty generous from Pittsburgh, to be frank).

Beyond Olivares though, it should also be known that Renfroe is NOT a long-term solution in the outfield for Kansas City.

If anything, Renfroe is a stopgap and insurance for the Royals lineup as Velazquez, Waters, and Tyler Gentry acclimate to the Major League level.

If two of those three make a splash, and if Renfroe bounces back at the start of the year (which has a tendency to do; he produced a 126 wRC+ last April), then it’s likely that Renfroe will be playing in another uniform by September or in 2025 at the latest.

Renfroe’s contract is over half the amount of what other free-agent outfielders like Gurriel, Brantley, and Pham are projected to make on the market. Thus, there’s some flexibility and affordability with Renfroe’s deal that could not just make him easier to move but also could help the Royals stock their farm system with talent by September.

Furthermore, Renfroe wouldn’t be blocking anyone, as manager Matt Quatraro has shown that he will play the best players and utilize the best matchups regardless of status.

Last season, Franmil Reyes, Jackie Bradley, Jr., and Hunter Dozier were veterans on the Royals roster who were jettisoned after cold starts and bleak outlooks going forward. While the Royals will have more patience with Renfroe than those three, Renfroe is not going to prevent Gentry, Waters, or Velazquez from getting at-bats if they are doing well or showing progress.

If the Royals signed Gurriel or Pham, it would require more of a long-term commitment in the outfield (those are guys who expect more of a commitment). Renfroe doesn’t carry that baggage or that expectation and I think it’s likely that if the Royals aren’t in the division race by July then Renfroe will be shopped around with other teams for a trade.

The Royals get a proven short-term veteran with some legitimate power who can command some kind of a prospect return by August of 2024 or the next off-season.

That’s the biggest difference between Olivares and Renfroe and why I think the Renfroe deal isn’t as bad as some of the naysayers are making it out to be.

Photo Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports