Royals Hitters Are Emphasizing Contact (And It's Paying Off) – Farm to Fountains

The Royals have won five straight on their current road trip, which included a sweep of the lowly Chicago White Sox at Guaranteed Rate Field and taking the first two games against the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park.

On Friday night, the Royals won 9-2, highlighted by a breakout 7th inning that saw the Royals collect nine consecutive hits.

Nine consecutive hits? The #Royals did that en route to a dominant win against Detroit. Series continues today behind Michael Lorenzen’s KC debut. https://t.co/hmn13Kq9lL

— Farm to Fountains (@farmtofountains) August 3, 2024

Much was made at the Trade Deadline about the Royals acquiring a leadoff hitter. However, two possible candidates, Tommy Pham and Jazz Chisholm Jr., went to the Cardinals and Yankees, respectively.

As a result, the Royals stayed pat, opting for cheap bench depth in Paul DeJong. DeJong adds some much-needed depth from the right side, but his 30.5% K rate isn’t ideal at the top of the batting order.

— MLB Trade Rumors (@mlbtraderumors) July 31, 2024

Despite the Royals’ leadoff woes, the offense has seen significant improvement from a year ago. Last year, the Royals ranked 28th in team wRC+ with an 87 mark. This season? That mark is 98, an 11-point improvement from 2023 and good for 17th in baseball, ahead of clubs like Atlanta, Seattle, and the Cubs.

Of course, Bobby Witt, Jr.’s breakout is a big reason the Royals’ overall offense has improved. Witt’s 170 wRC+ is 4th-best in baseball, and his 7.7 fWAR leads all MLB players, including Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani. That said, the Royals offense has also seen positive growth in one category that has helped this group become more productive in 2024.

The Royals emphasize making contact at the plate, which is paying off.

Let’s examine how the Royals have improved their contact ability this season, which Royals hitters have seen the best improvement, and what this could mean for this club over the next two months.

In 2023, the Royals were one of the more mediocre clubs in baseball when it came to putting the ball in play.

Last season, Royals hitters only had a collective contract rate of 75.4%, which ranked 20th in baseball. That percentage wasn’t helped by a 33.8% O-Swing rate (swings outside the strike zone rate), the 8th-highest in baseball.

The combination of mediocre contact rates and high chase rates from Royals hitters led to poor overall outcomes last season. Royals fans know about the rough wRC+ numbers. In addition, the Royals ranked 18th in K rate and the third-lowest BB/K ratio in 2023, according to Fangraphs.

Granted, many contributing factors led to the Royals’ 106 losses in 2023. The Royals hitters’ inability to make consistent contact at the plate didn’t help their endeavor. That lackluster performance motivated GM JJ Picollo to acquire veteran hitters like Hunter Renfroe, Garrett Hampson, and Adam Frazier to boost the group’s ability to make contact.

This season, the Royals have been one of the best clubs in baseball when it comes to making contact at the plate.

After ranking 20th in contact rate in 2023, the Royals rank 3rd this season with an 80% mark, a 4.6% improvement from last year.

The Royals still chase a lot. Hitters have a 33.8% O-Swing%, which is the third-highest in baseball.

However, they make contact on pitches in the strike zone much better than they did a season ago. Their 88.5% Z-Contact rate (contact on pitches in the strike zone) is the second-best mark in baseball. A year ago, their Z-Contact ranked 20th at 85%.

If they put the ball in play, Royals fans can live with hitters’ chasing. Better contact rates have plummeted K rates in 2024.

The Royals rank 2nd in K rate with an 18.2% mark (only 0.2% behind the Padres). Furthermore, Kansas City has also cut its K rate by 5.1%. That is a significant improvement from last year, especially with a group of core hitters that is primarily the same from a season ago.

Regarding Royals hitters and contact ability, the table below shows how they fared in 2023 via Fangraphs.

Last year, the Royals had eight hitters with contact rates below 70%, which isn’t good and a sign of a mediocre hitting club. The K rate data also confirms that the Royals’ hitters’ contact struggles led to more outs at the plate via strikeout.

The league average K rate tends to hover around 22%. The Royals had 12 hitters with K rates of 23% or above.

Five of those 12 hitters had fewer than 100 plate appearances, so at least the Royals didn’t stay long with those players with strikeout and contact issues. That said, seven of those hitters did receive more than 100 plate appearances, and three hitters (MJ Melendez, Drew Waters, and Nick Pratto) with strikeout rates above 27% received more than 330 plate appearances in 2023.

Now, let’s look at the contact rate of Royals hitters in 2024.

It’s nice to see some of the core Royals hitters make significant improvements in making contact at the plate in 2024.

Vinnie and Maikel remain the two best hitters when making contact. However, Vinnie has improved his contact percentage by 3.7%, and Maikel has seen a 3.8% improvement. Regarding other Royals hitters who were key players on the 2023 squad, Kyle Isbel has seen a 2.8% improvement, Witt has a 1.6% improvement, and Michael Massey has a 5.4% improvement.

That improvement in contact has led to lower K rates across the board for Royals hitters in 2024.

Garcia’s K rate went from 22.3% in 2023 to 15.2% in 2024, and Massey’s went from 21.5% in 2023 to 14.3% in 2024. Even Salvador Perez has seen his K rate decline from 23.3% in 2023 to 19.1% in 2024.

The most surprising improvement in contact ability on this Royals team this year may be Renfroe, who was acquired this offseason for his home-run and run-producing power.

Last year, Renfroe had a K rate of 22.8% and a contact rate of 75.4% with the Angels and Reds combined. This season, he lowered his K rate to 16.9% and contact rate to 79.2%. This has helped Renfroe become a better overall hitter with the Royals, demonstrated by his 104 wRC+ in 314 plate appearances.

In addition to Renfroe, the Royals’ emphasis on contact may explain why the Royals are okay with employing a leadoff platoon with Garcia and Massey over a hitter like Pham or Chisholm. Regarding plate discipline and contact, Garcia and Massey look much better than those other older options.

Massey and Garcia have contact rates above 85 percent (while Pham and Chisholm are below 80 percent) and Z-Contact rates above 90 percent. Pham’s is at 85.8%, and Chisholm is only at 80.6%. The league-average Z-Contact is 85.3% this season.

There is, of course, more to a leadoff hitter than just making contact.

That said, I would instead take Massey and Garcia’s contact ability and youth right now than Pham and Chisholm, who are older and have less upside (Pham considerably more so than Chisholm). Furthermore, the Royals didn’t have to give up any prospect capital in the process either.

The improvements in contact ability partially explain the Royals’ improvement overall as a hitting group in 2024. Furthermore, the contact metrics also show what this Royals coaching staff under manager Matt Quatraro is willing to tolerate in the lineup.

The Royals have only three hitters this year who have posted contact rates under 70%. The only one still on the active roster is Dairon Blanco, who’s more known as a baserunning weapon off the bench than someone who receives regular at-bats. The other two, Drew Waters and Nelson Velazquez, are in Triple-A Omaha.

Last year, Waters, Velazquez, and Nick Pratto received a lot of plate appearances with the Royals. Pratto had 345 plate appearances, Waters had 337, and Velazquez had 147 with the Royals (230 overall). Pratto (66.8%) and Velazquez (67.5%) had the two lowest contact rates of Royals hitters with 10 or more plate appearances last year, and Waters ranked 14th with a 70.4% mark.

In addition to the trio’s lackluster rates, their Contact Ability+ rolling charts from last season also didn’t look encouraging.

Thus, it’s not a surprise that Waters has only received 19 plate appearances, Pratto has received none, and Velazquez is in Triple-A Omaha after 230 plate appearances.

If Royals hitters want to stay in the lineup and at the Major League level, they must show or improve their ability to make contact. Melendez is still in the Major League because he improved his contact rate from 68.6% in 2023 to 72.5% in 2024.

It will be interesting to see if Royals hitters will gain or lose plate appearances over these next two months based on their ability to make contact. While power, speed, and defensive versatility are essential, the Royals coaching staff seems to prefer guys who can not just hit the ball hard but put the ball in play frequently. That makes it more likely that a hitter like Nick Loftin, just recently demoted, could get promoted again down the stretch than Waters or Velazquez.

Contact matters at the Major League level. Teams that make contact and don’t strike out are more likely to produce runs, even with wide ranges in BABIP that are bound to happen in a given year.

Need a specific example? From 2014 to 2015, the Royals led all of baseball in contact rate and had the lowest strikeout rate.

Royals fans know what happened during those two seasons.

Photo Credit: AP Photo/Mary Altaffer