Guy was a mid round draft pick with an unexciting college resume. He was a decent hitter in the minors, had a wildly awesome late season callup in 2018, looked like legit future big leaguer and at minimum a plus platoon bat at 1B, maybe a full time starter.
He then spent the next four years being one of MLB's least valuable players before we finally, mercifully cut ties with him, then he goes to Baltimore and suddenly becomes a dangerous bat again.
I've never understood the story here.
1) Why did the Royals stick with him as long as they did? Did the Royals scouts or analytics folks see something that just wasn't translating to on-field production that kept the Royals giving him PAs despite him not being able to hit, run, or defend? Or was it just hope that we'd see September 2018 ROH re-emerge at some point?
2) My best guess is yes, there WAS a major leaguer lurking somewhere in there (the Royals scouts or whoever were ultimately right) and he finally got let out again when he got to Baltimore. Did they do anything different with his approach?
Anyway we should not try to sign him this offseason I don't think.
2 comments
The O’s are just way better at developing hitters than we are and banning the shift definitely helped him as well
We stuck with him for so long cause we were bad for that long. It’s not like swapping him for Ryan Mcbroom would do anything…
Comes down to confidence, he saw what was said about him and it hampered his performance. New location in baltimore and his mental was ok and he succeeded. not really much more too it