After a disappointing 85-game campaign with the Orioles and Phillies in 2024 (97 wRC+; 0.2 fWAR), Hays found his groove in Cincinnati last year. In 416 plate appearances, he hit .266 with 15 home runs, a 105 wRC+, and 1.2 fWAR.<\/p>\n
The 30-year-old didn\u2019t provide much defensively a year ago, as illustrated by his +1 OAA and 0 FRV. However, he can play both corner outfield positions, and he was a masher against left-handed pitchers. <\/p>\n
He hit .319 with a 155 wRC+ against lefties a season ago. That was much better than his .249 average and 88 wRC+ against righties.<\/p>\n
With Collins likely in left field and Jac Caglianone<\/a> in right field, the Royals do not need an \u201ceveryday\u201d outfielder right now. They need someone who can rotate between both corners to give Caglianone or Collins a spell. <\/p>\n Hays would fit that role perfectly, especially considering his lefty-mashing tendencies. Furthermore, he would not cost the Royals much either, whether in terms of AAV (his current market value is around $5.13 million, according to Spotrac) or years (he is likely to get only a one-year deal).<\/p>\n If the Royals can\u2019t make that big trade for Boston\u2019s Jarren Duran<\/a> or St. Louis\u2019 Brendan Donovan<\/a>, Hays may be the cheaper consolation prize who can hold things down in the Kansas City outfield as a semi-regular until the Trade Deadline, at the very least. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a disappointing 85-game campaign with the Orioles and Phillies in 2024 (97 wRC+; 0.2 fWAR), Hays found…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437193,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2387],"tags":[5,936,2123,55,2596,2595,4,252],"class_list":{"0":"post-513737","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-kansas-city-royals","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-kansas","10":"tag-kansas-city","11":"tag-kansas-city-royals","12":"tag-kansascity","13":"tag-kansascityroyals","14":"tag-mlb","15":"tag-royals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115872474545434563","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=513737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}