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

Realistic Targets: Outfielders

Aside from J.D. Martinez (if he opts out), who’s mainly a DH, the free-agent outfield market for 2020 is crowded at the top, but overall thin. The market for a center fielder is basically non-existent.

Instead, there’s a glut of corner outfield types looking to revitalize their careers, extend their careers, or, in some cases, like that of the gentleman pictured above, looking for a shorter deal to prove to the big markets that they’re worthy of a long-term deal close to, if not exceeding, $100 million.

Yasiel Puig, RF (29)

What to make of the career of Yasiel Puig? He electrified baseball when he arrived as, essentially, a bull in a China shop back in 2013 with the Los Angeles Dodgers. In just 104 games that season, Puig, then only 22, slashed .319/.391/.534 for a .925 OPS, which was 59% higher than the league average. He flashed power (21 doubles and 19 home runs) and speed (two triples and 11 stolen bases) in that brief time that ended in a Game 6 NLCS loss to the Cardinals.

Since then? Purely meh.

Aside from 2016, he’s accrued an OPS that has been above the league’s average, but nothing that matched his rookie season. In 2015, he appeared in only 79 games. He hasn’t made the All-Star game since 2014. Since that year, which he finished hitting .296, he hasn’t hit above .267.

This past offseason, as he reached the final year of club control, the Dodgers finally moved him, shipping him to Cincinnati. During his 100 games there, he slashed just .252/.302/.455 for a .777 OPS, 5 percent below average. But right before the deadline, as part of a three-team deal, the Reds traded Puig to the Indians, where he’s fared a little worse, albeit in just 33 games: .266/.336/.406 for a .742 OPS, seven percent below average, to go with 18 runs scored, 10 doubles, two home runs and 15 runs batted in.

Luckily for Puig, getting traded takes away the chance for his team to slap him with a qualifying offer, meaning he won’t have draft-pick compensation tied to him when he hits free agency. Yet, his tantalizing talents combined with his average numbers make it clear he hasn’t put it all together in the Majors.

Another plus for Puig: he turns just 29 in December. He’s still got time to land that big contract. Perhaps his best bet would be to take a one-year deal somewhere he can start and star. Somewhere like Kansas City.

Signing Puig would push Dozier to playing third again, but that’s okay, as Puig is more than worth it, even just for a single season. He’s a name that would attract fans to Kauffman. If he puts it all together next season, he could be yet another 30-homer threat in the middle of the lineup. Puig would inject a dose of fun and excitement into the the Royals that the team has sorely missed since watching Lorenzo Cain leave for the Brewers.

Undoubtedly, this would be a coup. And yet, there is a chance. Thanks to Puig’s under-performance the past couple of seasons and his wearing out his welcome with a team owned by washed-up NBA GM, the market won’t develop for him as it should for a player with his talents.

Time for the Kansas City Royals to swoop in and reap the benefits of this particular baseball market inefficiency. Thing something along the lines of a one-year deal with a club option. It might be expensive, but it wouldn’t last that long if it went sour.