Kansas City Royals: 2020 free agent options, Part II: Batters

Hot Corner Dreams

Anthony Rendon, 3B (30)

I would love this. Signing Rendon would be an amazing move for the Kansas City Royals under new ownership.

When the San Diego Padres signed Manny Machado, I wrote about how the Royals should learn from that and go out and land themselves a nice little cornerstone player. Rendon not only primarily plays a position of relative need for the Royals, but the former Rice Owl also has over a full season’s worth of games at second base under his belt. Versatility!

Plus he’s a doubles machine and has hit above .300 each of the past three seasons while earning his fair share of walks. In fact, in 2017, he walked more times (84) than he struck out (82). No current Royals player thinks that’s even allowed.

Much like Machado, Rendon won’t come cheap or on a short-term deal. But he’s the one position player on the open market this upcoming offseason who would be worth that type of investment, especially for a team starved of star-power.

Josh Donaldson, 3B (34)

Signing Donaldson would be a consolation prize for the Royals on missing out on Rendon: older, rougher around the edges, still capable of holding down third base while hitting for power.

Donaldson, 33 until December, currently has been worth 5.7 wins above replacement for the playoff-bound Atlanta Braves, the team with whom he signed a one-year, $23 million deal in the offseason after a short spell with Cleveland to end 2018.

With 36 homers, he’s now launched more than 30 home runs in four seasons. While his current OPS+ (133) is below his career average (137), it’s an improvement over last year’s (118) and is still 33 percent above the current league average.

More likely than not, Donaldson, the 2015 American League MVP, will look for two things in his next contract: a multi-year deal, and a chance to compete. The Royals shouldn’t be (but will be) afraid of the former, and can’t offer the latter–at least in 2020.

But Donaldson is exactly the type of veteran ballplayer I’d want leading a young clubhouse: he’s been in the thick of the playoff hunt in every season since 2014. That experience would come in handy for such a young group of ballplayers.