KC Royals: Signing Lucas Duda puzzling move for rebuilding Royals

The KC Royals have made it pretty evident that they’re planning to rebuild this season. If that’s the case, why did they bring on Lucas Duda to man first base?

The big story all offseason long was would the KC Royals bring back Eric Hosmer to be their first baseman of the future? Spoiler alert: The answer was no. No, they would not.

The consensus after losing out on Hosmer to the San Diego Padres was that the Royals would try a few different guys out at first, but Hunter Dozier seemed to be the leading candidate. Not even a week into actual spring training games and the Royals have brought on a free agent to play first base.

No, it’s not Logan Morrison, who at one time had said it’d be a dream to play for his hometown team. Instead, the Royals signed Lucas Duda on Wednesday in what is a head scratching move.

Sources: #Royals in agreement on deal with Lucas Duda.
— Robert Murray (@ByRobertMurray) February 28, 2018

This isn’t anything against Lucas Duda or the fact that he can’t throw runners out at home when in a clutch situation (LOL!!!!), but more putting into question how much the Royals are rebuilding this year. The team isn’t going to win very many games, so why even waste the money on someone like Duda if it’ll only win them an extra six or seven games?

For what it’s worth, Duda has been a pretty consistent ball player. He spent the first eight years of his Major League career with the New York Mets. Most Royals fans will remember him from Game 5 of the World Series where he had a wild throw when trying to get Eric Hosmer out at the plate. Now he’s replacing Hosmer in Kansas City. How strange.

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Duda spent last year with the Mets and Rays and finished the season with a slash line of .217/.322/.496 with 30 home runs and 64 RBI. He hit more home runs than Hosmer, yes, but he also played most of the season in Citi Field, which is more home run friendly than Kauffman Stadium is.

Baseball Reference projects Duda to slash .233/.328/.475 with 24 home runs and 60 RBI. That seems… about right for what this Kansas City Royals team is expected to accomplish in 2018.

While it’s nice to have an experienced vet over at first base now, I guess I figure if you’re going to rebuild, then just rebuild. Let Dozier spend some time at first. Maybe throw Whit Merrifield over there from time to time. See what Ryan O’Hearn can do even.

We’ve now eliminated that from being a possibility. It’s too early in spring training for the confidence level in any of the potential first basemen to be low, so perhaps the low price tag of Duda is what finally sold the Royals on inking him to a deal.

There was another report that said the Royals did want to sign Morrison, but he wanted to go to a winner. If that were the case and Kansas City did reach out to him, then we certainly can’t put the “tanking” label on this team, even if they won’t be all that good. They’re obviously still trying to compete somewhat this year.

Hosmer was the plan and maybe once he re-signed, the Royals did try very hard to get Morrison to KC. It is a bit ironic that the day after Morison signs with the Twins, the Royals also added a first baseman. Hmm…

What do you think about the signing of Lucas Duda? Do you wish the Kansas City Royals had just stuck with Dozier or another unknown player/prospect?

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