MJ Melendez remains one of the most polarizing hitters on the Kansas City Royals roster this season.
The overall numbers show that Melendez still manages to be a subpar player.
In 76 games and 258 plate appearances, he has produced a slash line of .191/.258/.366 with a wOBA of .272 and a wRC+ of 71. On the flip side, he has hit eight home runs, produced an 88 wRC+ in June (a 51-point improvement from the previous month), and has a .317 xwOBA.
Regarding the latter mark, his xwOBA has not only shown a rise in performance after a rough stretch but has consistently been above the league average since that problematic period between his 80th and 140th plate appearances via Savant.
In addition, Melendez has also been much better with the glove in the outfield compared to a season ago, which is a big reason why he’s stayed up in the Majors and hasn’t been demoted to Omaha (unlike Nelson Velazquez).
Last year, according to Baseball Savant, Melendez was 11 outs below average in the outfield. This year, with an entire offseason and Spring Training of work in the outfield, he has improved that mark to only out below average.
Is Melendez a Gold Glover? Absolutely not. However, he is showing that he can hold his own in the corner outfield positions (especially left field) and make sensational plays like this one below back in May in Tampa Bay.
Despite Melendez’s progress with his glove this year and gains with the bat over the past month, his future, both this season and beyond, remains hazy.
The Royals still need more consistency from their lineup, significantly beyond Bobby Witt, Jr., Salvador Perez, and Vinnie Pasquantino. Melendez has shown flashes, with his three-hit night last night in the Royals’ 5-1 loss being a prime example. However, MJ has not hit frequently enough this year to solidify his spot in LF.
The Royals have been rumored to be tied to outfielders like Tommy Pham of the White Sox and possibly Taylor Ward of the Angels.
Would the Royals be willing to make a move that could relegate Melendez to a bench role (or a possible demotion to Omaha)? Or is JJ Picollo banking on this latest stretch from Melendez as a sign that he is turning a corner as a player both in the short and long term?
Let’s look at some of the positive and negative trends Royals fans have seen from Melendez and what could possibly be in store for the 25-year-old outfielder down the road in Kansas City.
Better Decision Making at the Plate and Still Solid Power
When looking at Melendez’s PLV data so far this year, there are two areas where Royals fans can still be encouraged: his decision value and power.
According to Pitcher List, decision value can be defined as follows:
Decision Value: Modeled value (runs per 100 pitches) of a hitter’s decision to swing or take, minus the modeled value of the alternative.
Essentially, the better the Decision Value+ of a hitter, the better they are at making swings and taking decisions on pitches at the plate. It’s not just a matter of swinging or laying off more pitches. Instead, it’s about pouncing on the correct pitches that can be hit effectively and not swinging on the pitches that cannot produce effective contact.
Here’s a look at Melendez’s Decision Value+ trends this season via PLV.
As Royals fans can see, since May 15th, Melendez has been on an upward trend in his Decision Value+. His trend line was above the MLB average and even the 75th percentile. That’s a positive development that shows that despite Melendez’s overall struggles at the plate this year, he is making adjustments to consistently improve his plate decisions.
What’s interesting about Melendez’s decision value metrics is that it’s not like he’s swinging the bat less this year. In fact, based on his swing aggression rolling PLV chart, he is one of the more free swingers in the league.
For the season, Melendez’s swing aggression is 4% more aggressive than the league-average hitter’s. He also has been in the 90th percentile at one point in swing aggression, though that has decreased a little since June 15th, which is around the time when his recent turnaround started to happen.
Even though Melendez swings a lot at the plate, he still has the raw tools to succeed. His bat speed ranks in the 70th percentile of the league via Savant. Furthermore, he has shown consistent bat speed on pitches in all areas of the strike zone.
As a result of that bat speed, Melendez has generated intriguing power on balls he connects with. Here’s a look at his power PLV chart from this season, and notice that it’s just as encouraging, if not more so, than his decision value rolling chart.
His Power+ has only been below the league average at one point this year, and it’s averaging around the 75th percentile of the league for the season. For a team that needs power, especially in a spacious home park like Kauffman Stadium, Melendez fits the bill profile-wise.
Furthermore, based on his barrel/BIP% zone chart, Melendez has been able to barrel balls in a few critical areas of the zone with frequency, even if he’s been rather lackluster at making contact in other areas of the strike zone this year (more on that later).
Melendez has successfully barred balls in five strike zone areas, with three regions being up and away. Melendez tends to swing much more than average on those pitches in the upper part of the strike zone. However, he has been effective in barreling baseball in those up-and-away areas because he’s been a lot shorter with his swing length in those zones, as seen in the zone charts below.
The long swing length has not hurt him on pitches low and in the middle of the strike zone. He is producing a barrel rate of 35% on pitches in that area of the zone (zone 8, to be specific). That said, he tends to barrel up breaking or offspeed pitches in that area that are not located effectively, much like this one from Oakland’s Ross Stripling on May 18th at Kauffman.
Melendez shows he can make pitchers pay when they hang mistakes in the zone this year.
The main question, though, is if he can do that enough to stay liable at the plate for the remainder of this season and beyond?
Contact Still an Issue for Melendez
While MJ has shown improved decision-making at the plate, his BB/K ratio is still 0.29, a seven-point decline from the previous season. A big reason is Melendez struggles to make consistent contact at the Major League level, a problem that has dogged him for quite some time.
Of hitters with at least 250 or more plate appearances this season, Melendez has the 8th-lowest Z-Contact% (contact on pitches in the strike zone) in baseball at 78.3%.
On a positive end, Melendez has one of the lower CSW% (called strike plus whiff rate) marks of hitters in the bottom 20 of Z-Contact%. Also, his O-Contact% of 63.2% is the second-highest mark of this 20-hitter group (only Paul Goldschmidt has a higher O-Contact%).
That said, Melendez isn’t strong at making consistent contact. In addition to his lackluster Z-Contact% data, his Contact+ rolling chart trends also display his struggles in this area this season.
His Contact+ season average for this year is just above 90, which ranks him around the 25th percentile of the league. The combo of a low Contact+ with high swing-aggression metrics is typically a recipe for disaster and can lead to long struggles, as we saw from MJ in May (37 wRC+).
Not being able to make consistent contact isn’t necessarily a death knell for a hitter’s long-term outlook.
As the table above via Fangraphs shows, many quality hitters (Aaron Judge, for example) can succeed without excellent contact ability. Furthermore, according to Baseball Savant, Melendez’s hitting profile is similar to that of some names who have carved out decent careers at the MLB level.
Unfortunately, lackluster contact ability puts more pressure on his power to be more consistent and successful at the plate.
While the signs of power are there (and have been in previous seasons), the barrels and power are not frequent enough to give Royals fans enough confidence in Melendez’s outlook to be a long-term starter in the outfield or lineup for Kansas City at this time.
Is This Just Who MJ Is as a Hitter?
Through his defensive improvement this year, we have seen what Melendez can do when he works specifically on one particular area of his game. Thus, there may be some hope that with some more tweaks, Melendez could be an average or slightly above-average overall hitter at the MLB level, even if he may be below average in the batting average category.
However, Royals fans have seen quite a significant sample from Melendez at the Major League level.
As of Wednesday, he has accumulated 1,228 Major League plate appearances. He has a career wOBA of .303 and wRC+ of 90 in that sample. It’s not bad, but it doesn’t exactly scream to Royals fans or even Picollo that he is worthy of being “safe” in his spot in the Royals lineup.
On a positive note, Melendez has been pulling the ball more in 2024, which is an encouraging sign. His 47.3% pull rate is 1.5% higher than a season ago. Furthermore, his spray chart this year shows a trend of more base hits to the right field side compared to 2023.
Still, are these changes enough to make me confident in Melendez as a long-term solution for the Royals in the outfield? I’m not sure.
Melendez will enter his first year of arbitration this offseason, which puts Picollo in a peculiar spot with the Royals’ 2017 second-round draft pick. After signing Witt to a massive extension this past offseason, it would make sense for the Royals to begin exploring other extension options this upcoming Winter to keep payroll down (and open things up for more free agent options).
Right now, I think Pasquantino is in the discussion of a possible extension candidate for the Royals. Michael Massey may enter that discussion soon if he can keep up his strong hitting and get healthy again to play the field at second base. Considering his low value at this time due to his struggles in June, Maikel Garcia could agree to a cheap extension. The Royals front office seems to have long liked what Garcia brings to this team, especially on a baserunning and defensive end.
Does Melendez get into that “extension” conversation this offseason, especially with him entering arbitration?
That’s harder to determine, especially since the Royals also have outfielders like Tyler Gentry and Gavin Cross in Omaha and Northwest Arkansas, who can possibly compete for a starting outfield job next spring in 2025. Cross isn’t on the 40-man roster yet, but he will likely be added soon, especially after being named to the Futures Game roster this week (along with pitcher Ben Kudrna).
The Royals have depth in their system in the outfield, which makes Melendez more expendable if he can’t turn around this ship by the conclusion of the 2024 season.
There’s no question that Melendez brings a positive vibe to this clubhouse, and he gels well with this young group, especially Witt, who’s been within the Royals system for quite some time.
The Royals must make decisions to help them win in the short and long term. Unfortunately, it’s tough to say that Melendez will help in either category unless something dramatic happens with his bat in the coming months.
Photo Credit: Kirby Lee | USA TODAY
At age 25, MJ is yet to reach peak, so there may still be some untapped potential there.
Having said that, I would NOT trade him. Jitters are notoriously streaky. Pitchers are not. Winning teams are built around strong pitching that can keep most opposing lineups to 4 runs or less per 9 innings. In other words, our lineup MUST produce 4+ runs per night.
If I were to trade, and assuming we were out of the chase, it would be center and right that I would trade. Renfroe is a good player, but not extraordinarily so. Ysbel has not produced enough. If Waters figures out that hitting for average and OBP is what will get him to the majors, he could render Ysbel expendable. I also have noted that Massey may be a bit fragile. Bundling Renfroe and Massey in a deal for a premium, albeit underperforming (great “stuff”, not so great stats), arm or two might bolster our pitching staff. I would then move Maikel to 2b where his bat and other tools are more prototypical and open 3b for more of a power hitter. This option could be open to some of our better hitting catchers in the minors.we currently have a good 4 man rotation. A couple of swingmen would come in handy as Singer could go out and pitch 4 to 5 quality innings (Lugo,and Wacha get 6 to 7) against a rival #4 starter and turn the game over to a completely different yet effective pitcher who would wreck the opposing hitter’s timing for two or three innings and then turn it over to set-up man and closer.
So, I would hold on to MJ and see how far we can get by emphasizing low scoring games.
Mr. O’B, Completely agree that something needs to happen with MJ’s bat, that it needs to be dramatic, and it needs tobe soon.
He has such potential and brings hustle and effort, always.Can’t help but pull for the guy.
Still, he is the most frustrating Royals hitter since AlcidesEscobar. What my completely untrained eyes see about MJ is thathis lower half seems to always be unbalanced at the peakof his swing and that that saps some of his power. He is not driving the ball, just flicking the occasional liner.
His swing is funny looking and I’m sure that’s a reason why contact is an issue for him. That said, I’m not sure a full sale swing change would be beneficial or realistic. The hard-hit data shows that he’s hitting the ball hard, just needs to hit the ball more often
an option could be to trade MJ got Rockies 3b Ryan McMahon. Move Maikel to 2b.
Bundle Massey and an outfielder, and maybe an underperforming reliever (Stratton?) for a swingman (MLB or AAA) with velocity and good peripherals and/or an outfielder who can hit 260+ with an OBP north of .330 (which is what Watters could be if he tried to). Power would be nice, but we need contact and “non-out” at bats. We need them signed thru ’25 so we can flip them as they become expendable.
I like the McMahon pick up. Hope the Rockies are finally willing to trade him away.
I think power is important. I get what you’re saying but we actually make contact a lot. We have a 0.40 BB/K ratio which is Top 10. Problem is we don’t make enough productive contract, which is where the power comes into play.
I understand that the dearth of solid contact is a problem. At this time, we need to play a moneyball hybrid. Avoid outs, move the runners. You get two “free swings” and then defend the plate in order to generation pitch number at-bats. If the hitters can make contact, they will work themselves up to making contact with power. What we don’t need are 25 HR guys with a .235 BA and rally-killing bushels of K’s.
While I like Massey, he seems to be a bit fragile. A good player is only good if he can get on the field. Trading him to bring a real 3b player and move Maikel to 2b would give us stability. Put Massey, Stratton and Renfroe and get a solid pitcher who can throw in the mid nineties and has at least four pitches (4 seam, 2 seam, slider, curve and maybe circle change. Thats a four inning guy. Play Waters and the young guys now so they’ll be seasoned for next year’s pennant run. Waters needs to understand that he needs to be productive, or we will trade him to the worst team we can find for a draft pick.
Ideally I get what you’re saying and agree. However, I think that’s a lot harder to find. The guys who make contact at a high level and are acquirable don’t really hit the ball hard and then we get more Adam Frazier or Nicky Lopez types. The Royals obviously have a low tolerance for low contact high strikeout guys beyond MJ (Nelly wouldn’t have been demoted otherwise), but I am fine with trying to get guys who at least demonstrate some batted ball skills (i.e. hit the ball hard) and see if we can ride hot streaks when they come over (like Nelly last year). Think just having depth of more hitters helps and the guys who don’t figure into that depth need to be gone as you said.
I’m actually somewhat open to moving Massey. I think this org knows how to produce good middle infielders and I too am worried about Massey’s long-term ability to stay healthy. I also have been hearing rumblings of a Bellinger for Renfroe swap as I hear the Cubs are eager to shed Belli’s contract (don’t want to be locked in for more years). May acquire us to throw Massey and maybe a reliever, but I like that deal as a boost who could give us some short and long term potential.
Cody Bellinger improves the lineup in several ways, but 3b is still a key acquisition as it allows us to put Maikel at 2b.
Any player is going to have issues. In this case, we would be kicking tires on guys who are in the wrong team that, due to ideological reasons (wrong system) does not make proper use of them, or that have an immovable player blocking their way. That’s where a good scouting team proves its worth.
[…] Melendez, who was looking like a Omaha-bound player in June, was one of the significant position players who stood out from game one, thanks to his three-run […]
[…] For the Royals to clinch their first postseason appearance since 2015, they will need some hitters to step up, especially after Pham, Salvy, and Witt. One hitter the Royals will depend on this month is MJ Melendez, who has been having a solid second half, much like in 2023. […]