Today on this cold, chilly, post-Chiefs victory Sunday, Farm to Fountains’ Jared Perkins’ posted this poll to get a gauge of who Royals fans were thinking would be a breakout player in 2024.
As of 4 p.m. on Sunday, Velazquez leads the bunch with 35.2% of the vote while Michael Massey is currently in 2nd with 28.1%. I voted for Massey in this poll, but I did advocate for Lynch and Isbel as possible breakout candidates as long as they could stay healthy.
Velazquez on the other hand? I was less optimistic about his outlook for 2024, which is in contrast to what a majority of Royals fans are predicting.
In my own post on X, Royals Weekly and I went back and forth on Velazquez’s outlook, with Royals Weekly arguing that his batted ball skills would facilitate a breakout. I didn’t disagree, but I also felt Velazquez’s contact issues could be a problem and it makes me cautious with him in 2024, especially since he has less than 400 PA under his belt.
Royals fans can see the full thread in the embedded Tweet below.
(I was wrong by the way; Velazquez just turned 25 years old).
Things ended civilly between Royals Weekly and myself in terms of our X conversation. That being said, it did get me wondering:
Am I being a little too pessimistic about Velazquez’s outlook for the upcoming 2024 season?
Without a doubt, the Royals front office, JJ Picollo specifically, should be commended for their acquisition of Velazquez at last year’s Trade Deadline. The Royals traded away Jose Cuas, a reliever who had over-performed in 2023 and had limited upside, to the Cubs in exchange for the Puerto Rican-born outfielder who was only 24 years old at the time and carries years of team control in addition to massive offensive upside.
In 2022, Velazquez was rated as the 15th-best prospect in the Cubs system, according to Baseball America. Here’s what BA said about Velazquez that year in their scouting report.
Velazquez has long had loud tools and is finally turning them into production. He generates above-average power out of his compact, muscular build and has made swing adjustments to better access it. He previously struggled with fastballs and was too pull-oriented, but he flattened his swing to stay in the zone longer and now drives high-velocity fastballs to all fields. He remains prone to chasing breaking balls off the plate but makes enough contact overall to project to hit .240 with 20-plus home runs. Velazquez is a good athlete given his bulk and makes highlight-reel catches in both center and right field. He has average speed and plus arm strength.
“Nelson Velazquez: No. 15”; By Baseball America
Considering how difficult it is for hitters to hit home runs at Kauffman Stadium, Velazquez’s profile seemed like the perfect fit, especially for a club starved for legitimated power upside. On the other hand, the “chasing breaking balls off the plate” concerns did manifest itself in his 40-game sample with the Royals shortly after the trade.
In 147 plate appearances, Velazquez posted a K% of 29.3% and a BB/K ratio of 0.26. While he hit 14 home runs and generated a ridiculous .346 ISO, it’s hard to ignore the K rate and BB/K ratio as well as the 67.5% contact rate and 15.9% swinging-strike rate.
Those were percentages that put him in between Nick Pratto and Franmil Reyes last year, two hitters who struggled to produce for the Royals in 2023.
So does that mean Velazquez is going to regress heavily in 2024? That’s harder to determine, especially when Royals fans dive more into the data.
Typically, hitters with sub-70% contact rates can be prone to wild inconsistency (this is a concern with MJ Melendez as well, who had a 68.5% contact rate last year). On the other hand, as Royals Weekly pointed out, there were a few hitters last year who found success despite contact rates below that 70% threshold.
Thus, am I weighing Velazquez’s contact rate too heavily in his projection for next year?
After all, he was hurt by a .221 BABIP last year, and his 31.7% O-Swing% was actually 0.2 percentage points better than the league average. Furthermore, he’s not chasing frequently out of the zone like Salvy (49.5% O-Swing%) or even Massey, who sported a 35.9% O-Swing% last season.
So let’s take a deeper look into Velazquez’s profile and compare his metrics to some other players around the league who sport similar contact rates to Velazquez.
How Does Velazquez Compare to Robert and Outman?
I decided to compare Velazquez only to the White Sox’s Robert and the Dodgers’ Outman.
While I think there is validity in comparing Velazquez to Harper and Castellanos, both of those players are veterans who are at different points in age as well as their careers. Robert does have a lot more years under his belt than both Outman and Velazquez, but all three are around the same age range (Robert and Outman are both 26).
Here’s a look at Velazquez, Robert, and Outman’s production from a year ago, via Fangraphs.
As Royals fans can see, Robert and Outman outperformed Velazquez by a considerable margin in fWAR and counting stats, though both players had far more plate appearances than Velazquez in 2023.
Velazquez primarily lags behind Outman and Robert in terms of defense. Velazquez was 5.9 runs below average in terms of Def, while Robert was 7.6 runs above average and Outman was 6.0 runs above average. That’s a big reason why Robert had a 5.0 fWAR and Outman generated a 4.4 fWAR in 2023 while Velazquez only sported a 0.7 fWAR.
When looking at only their hitting metrics though, it’s a different story among Robert, Outman, and Velazquez. In most hitting categories, sans the counting stats, Velazquez actually outshines the White Sox and Dodger outfielders.
Velazquez leads the group in wOBA, xwOBA, ISO, and wRC+. He also sports the lowest K% at 28.5% and also sports the lowest BABIP at .221. In fact, his BABIP is 122 points lower than Outman’s and 93 points lower than Robert’s. That is a big reason why Velazquez not only has the highest xwOBA of the bunch, but he is the only one of the three with a positive difference between xwOBA and wOBA (i.e. xwOBA is higher).
Granted, Robert and Outman have more value on the basepaths than Velazquez. However, one has to wonder what 2023 could’ve looked like for Velazquez had he gotten the number of plate appearances that Robert (595) and Outman (567) received last season.
In terms of their Statcast metrics from a year ago, Velazquez continues to be the most impressive of the trio.
At the surface level, there’s definitely an unsustainability to Velazquez’s barrel rate. Of qualified hitters last year, Shohei Ohtani produced the highest barrel rate in the league at 19.3%. Therefore, it’s likely that Vealzquez’s barrel rate would’ve regressed with more plate appearances in 2023.
On the other hand, the hard-hit rate, exit velocity, xBA, and xSLG numbers showcase that Velazquez’s batted ball skills are legitimate and can be transitioned into 2024 and long term. On the flip side, Robert and Outman’s numbers also showcase that people should be cautious with their respective outlooks for this upcoming year.
Lastly, when looking at the plate discipline, Velazquez seems to fall in between Robert and Outman when it comes to decision-making and the ability to make contact.
All three hitters have below-average contact rates. That being said, they have different approaches at the plate, as evidenced by the plate discipline data.
Outman is a selective hitter at the plate. He sports not only the lowest Swing% of the group but the lowest O-Swing% as well. Robert on the other hand has the most free-swinging approach as he leads the three in both of those categories. Velazquez is right in the middle in not just both of those categories, but most others in the above table as well.
When diving deeper into PLV decision value metrics, the rolling charts among the three outfielders showcase some intriguing trends from a season ago.
Robert’s decision value chart demonstrated that he was at the bottom of the league percentiles-wise in terms of runs added per 100 pitches. Outman on the other hand was in the upper percentiles of the league, hovering around the 90th percentile from the 1250th to 2000th pitch mark.
However, Robert and Outman both had considerable drops at the end of the year in their decision value trend. That wasn’t the case at all in Velazquez’s rolling chart, as it stayed pretty stable for most of the season (albeit in a more limited sample).
If Velazquez sees 500 or 600 plate appearances in 2024, will that decision value chart see a major drop at the end of the year like Robert and Outman? Or will Velazquez continue to sport similar trends but over a larger sample of pitches seen?
If the latter happens, the Royals could have a special hitter on their hands long-term in Velazquez.
Why the Royals Are Being Cautious With Velazquez
The Royals seemed to be invested in Velazquez for the time being. Picollo opted to trade Edward Olivares to Pittsburgh to clear space in the outfield. Furthermore, Velazquez has not been mentioned in trade talks unlike Melendez, who’s been mentioned as a possible trade chip for Picollo and the Royals this offseason.
Nonetheless, if the Royals had so much faith in Velazquez, why did they acquire Hunter Renfroe to possibly split right field and designated hitter duties for 2024?
To be honest, it probably has to do less with Velazquez and more with the Royals ensuring they have contingency plans in place so they don’t have a repeat of what happened in 2023.
Last year, the Royals went all-in on the youth movement, which was demonstrated by their Opening Day lineup against the Twins:
Unfortunately, the “youth movement” plan backfired for a variety of reasons last year. The combination of slow starts (Witt, Melendez, and Massey) and injuries (Waters and Vinnie) proved to sink the Royals after just a couple of months into the season.
Granted, the Royals needed a lot more help than just a couple of hitters (they did lose 106 games after all). On the flip side, Royals fans have to wonder what the team could’ve done with some more proven bats in the lineup to help take the pressure off the young guys, especially right out of the gate (they went 17-39 in March, April, and May).
For context, let’s take a look at the xwOBA breakdown charts of both Massey and Melendez from last season.
(Scroll right for Massey; left for Melendez.)
Both Massey and Melendez were expected to be big contributors for the Royals in 2023 after promising rookie campaigns. Unfortunately, they went through some rough patches on an xwOBA end within the first two months and that had an impact on the Royals overall.
Picollo and manager Matt Quatraro want to avoid a slow start in 2024 as much as possible, especially in a key season where the Royals are trying to build momentum in the long term (especially as they hope to move into a new downtown stadium). Having some proven veterans helps minimize the risk, especially with veterans who can get off to a hot start.
Thankfully for the Royals, they have someone who can do that in Renfroe, whose best year in 2023 came at the start when he was with the Angels.
Renfroe did regress a bit at the end of the year, much to the chagrin of Royals fans who were cautious about the acquisition. That was especially true when he was claimed by Cincinnati after being waived by the Angels in September and only posted a .128 average and .432 OPS in 14 games and 44 plate appearances with the Reds.
That said, if Renfroe is looking like he did at the start of 2023 and is healthy, he will likely be traded away by July or August for some kind of prospect return. While the Royals did offer him a player option for 2025, it would be really surprising if the Royals held onto him long enough to allow him to exercise that option.
Thus, if Velazquez is performing in 2024 like he did last year in Kansas City, then Velazquez will have sole rights to the right field position. Consequently, Salvy and perhaps Melendez or Tyler Gentry will receive designated hitter duties down the stretch and in preparation for 2025.
How Can Velazquez Improve in 2024?
The key area for Velazquez to focus and work on next season will be to continue to hone his plate discipline. Specifically, he needs to cut down the strikeouts and generate more walks to at least boost his BB/K ratios and help him be a complete hitter.
How he progresses against breaking and offspeed pitches in 2024 will likely determine how those BB/K ratios fare next season and beyond.
In his first two seasons in the Major Leagues, both with the Cubs and the Royals, Velazquez has struggled against non-fastball pitches. Royals fans can see that trend in his season-by-season pitch arsenal xwOBA charts via Savant.
He saw incremental progress by the end of last season in Kansas City. That is a positive sign for 2024, especially as he gets a full spring in Surprise with the Royals hitting coaches, led by Alec Zumwalt and assistant hitting coach Keoni DeRenne (they also added Joe Dillon this offseason to give them a third hitting coach for 2024).
It will be important for Velazquez to continue that upward trend in xwOBA against breaking and offspeed pitches, while still maintaining his sterling effectiveness against fastball pitches in 2024.
However, Royals fans won’t know for sure how much he has improved in this area until the games are played, starting in Arizona in the Cactus League.
That is why the Royals and Royals fans probably need to be cautious for now.
As we all know though, expectations can change quickly. Velazquez is a prime example of that.
After all, if the Cubs thought Velazquez was going to do long-term what he did with the Royals after the Trade Deadline, they likely wouldn’t have traded him away, especially for a reliever like Cuas.
Photo Credit: Ed Zurga/Getty Images
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