Royals Deep Dives: What happened to MJ Melendez? – Farm to Fountains

In the third installment of the deep dives for the 2024 Royals season the subject is MJ Melendez. Coming off a strong second half of last year many thought a full breakout was starting. Since the first two or so weeks Melendez has been cooler than cold, ice cold at the plate.

Starting with the basics, MJ’s slash line on the year is .176/.233/.338 for an OPS of .571. That is less than ideal, especially since the outfield hasn’t provided a ton of offense for the Royals. While Hunter Renfroe has been not good either, it is more concerning that MJ has struggled mightily. Before anyone mentions Kyle Isbel, just read the deep dive covering him.

So, why has MJ struggled so much? Well, there is a lot to unpack with that answer. The big three numbers that are concerning right now for MJ are his hard hit rate, walk rate and his inability to hit fastballs. MJ has a hard hit rate of 41% which is 8% lower than last season, and his walk rate is 6.9% which is down from 10.3%. Those are very concerning for MJ, but the biggest one is his inability to hit fastballs.

According to Baseball Savant pitch tracking, in the category of fastballs MJ has hit .198 and slugged .395. The fastball category includes 4-seam, 2-seam, sinkers, and cutters as the main pitches in that category. Diving deeper, specifically into run values, MJ has one positive run value on fastballs this season. He has negative-2 on 4-seamers, a negative-1 on cutters, and a one on sinkers. For context, MJ hasn’t had great run values on 4-seamers, three is his career high, but on cutters and sinkers he tends to see success.

On cutters and sinkers in MJ’s career, he has average a positive count on cutters and has never had a negative value on sinkers. In fact, MJ hits sinkers the best in his career. So, if MJ is bad at hitting fastballs this season, what pitch does he hit the best? From a technical standpoint, he has struggled with everything. His best pitch to hit is probably the sinker just based on his .526 slugging against it.

Going deeper, another concern with MJ’s game is his swing/take profile. While he has always had a negative value in this stat throughout his career, it is really bad this year. With players who have seen 500 pitches or more, MJ has the sixth worst swing/take value at negative-10. This is powered by his chase and waste values only being at three. This means on swings or takes in the heart, shadow, chase or waste zones on a strike zone the outcome of the pitch adds or subtracts to the value. Meaning that MJ is either swinging a lot and not getting good outcomes or taking and getting bad outcomes.

To throw more chaos into the mix, MJ’s plate discipline numbers show he actually has improved. His contact rates are higher, swinging strike rate is lower, whiff rate is lower, and called strike rate is lower. Throw in his .218 BABIP and many could argue he has been unlucky, and to a point he has, but the expected numbers do not like MJ.

Diving into his splits sees a ton of weird data as well. MJ is great in high leverage at-bats hitting .417 and driving in six RBI’s. He has a .065 average away from Kauffman, a .074 average going to the opposite field, and in advantageous counts (1-0, 2-0, 2-1 3-0, 3-1) he is hitting .193. A lot of weird numbers for a guy that does well in the negative splits shown.

The bat has changed significantly since April 19, when he was hitting .242/.329/.516. Since that date, MJ has hit .144/.172/.256 with zero RBI’s or home runs with three walks. From April 20 to May 27, MJ has a negative-4 wRC+ with a .163 wOBA, that is really bad. While this season has been terrible at the plate, his defense has actually been solid.

He has accrued one defensive run saved and zero outs above average, while having a plus arm. His uZR (universal zone rating) is also at 3.7 which is good for a guy who had a -0.7 last season. His defense is actually where his value has come from this season as it is keeping his fWAR from being Andrew Benintendi bad.

Through the numbers and data we carry on and state that MJ Melendez has had a bad two months of play. A lot of fixes are needed for MJ to turn it around, but we have seen that happen before. Right now it is a question of when the changes start being made. For the Royals, they desperately need one of the corner outfield guys to step up and MJ could be that guy if he has a steady couple of weeks.

(Photo by Jay Biggerstaff/Getty Images)