Who should hit leadoff for the Royals?
Maikel Garcia has been in a sluuuuuuump.
The Royals offense has looked pretty good thus far. Through Wednesday games, they were averaging 4.84 runs-per-game, good for 11th-best in all of baseball. What is remarkable is that they’ve done this without a tablesetter. Leadoff hitters for the Royals are hitting just .165/.209/.329, the third-worst OPS any team has gotten from the leadoff spot.
Maikel Garcia has hit leadoff in all but the most recent game for the Royals, but after a hot start, he has been mired in an awful slump, going hitless in his last 23 at-bats, and hitting .057 over his last nine games. Garcia is a talented hitter who may just be going through a cold stretch and just needs time to work things out. He had decent walk rates in the minors, and has terrific speed, swiping 23 bases last year, and finishing fifth on the team in Baserunning Runs last year.
On the other hand, his walk rate at the big league level wasn’t terrible, but it was below average. He’s a young, unproven hitter, and asking him to set the table this early in his career may be asking too much. Hitting lower in the lineup may take the pressure off and get him back to playing his game.
If Garcia is not the answer in the leadoff spot, who could the Royals turn to?
MJ Melendez hit in the leadoff spot for 63 games in 2022, as well as a handful of games last year. He has the best walk rate out of any Royals hitter still on the team over the last three years at 11.3 percent, although because he is such a low batting average hitter, his on-base percentage is a much more pedestrian .314. He has been BABIP-unlucky (.284), and he has had some good underlying metrics in hard-hit rate, so there is hope he can get that average up. If he could become even a .250 hitter with the same walk rate, that would push his on-base percentage to around .335, about league-average for a leadoff hitter. Melendez doesn’t steal a ton of bases, but he has above-average sprint speed.
Bobby Witt Jr. has really broken through as an elite player, so why not put him in the leadoff spot to get him as many plate appearances as possible? Bobby also has the traditional speed you would want out of a leadoff hitter, swiping 79 bases over the last two seasons combined. Some may worry that he won’t be able to drive in runs from the leadoff spot, but other successful teams have put elite hitters in the leadoff spot, such as Mookie Betts and Ronald Acuña Jr. Witt has hit leadoff 47 times in his career, mostly last year, but that has been the spot in the lineup he has hit the worst with a line of .204/.242/.378. For all his skills, getting on base is probably his biggest weakness. Even in a breakout season like last year, his OBA was .319, below league-average. And having a great base stealer at the top of the lineup might actually be bad, if the hitters behind him are power hitters who don’t typically manufacture runs. Witt’s steals may be maximized if he is lower in the lineup ahead of singles hitters who struggle to hit for extra bases.
Vinnie Pasquantino would go against the grain of what a traditional leadoff hitter from the 1980s looks like, but teams are breaking that mold these days. Teams these days are using slow-footed on-base machines in the leadoff spot like Yandy Diaz with the Rays, Adley Rutschman with the Orioles, Brandon Nimmo with the Mets, and Kyle Schwarber with the Phillies. Pasquantino is right behind Melendez in walk rate at 11.1 percent over the last three seasons, and he leads all current regular Royals in OBA over that time at .356. His lack of stolen bases might be a plus if he hits in front of guys like Witt and Salvador Perez, who won’t be pitched around if first base is open. But having a slow runner in front of Witt may impede his ability to take the extra base.