Kansas City Royals: First base is position battle to watch in Summer Camp
Summer Camp begins Friday for the Kansas City Royals and the biggest position battle to watch is at first base.
Kansas City Royals baseball gets underway Friday in the form of Summer Camp, which is the new form of Spring Training for 2020. The 2020 MLB season has been delayed up to this point due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
While there are a lot of intriguing questions heading into Royals Summer Camp, one of the most intriguing for the Royals, according to MLB.com, is who will start at first base in this shortened season?
There are two realistic options here and both players are named Ryan. There’s Ryan O’Hearn and Ryan McBroom, both of whom are going to be duking it out for the right to start at first base in 2020.
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O’Hearn held the job last year, but disappointed after having a strong rookie season in 2018. That impressive rookie campaign saw O’Hearn slash .262/.353/.597 with 12 home runs and 30 RBI through 170 plate appearances.
The following season was a struggle for O’Hearn, who had 370 plate appearances (so 200 more than the previous year), but was only able to manage a .195/.281/.369 slash line with 14 home runs and 38 RBI.
McBroom joined the team midseason when the Royals acquired him from the Yankees and used him in a variety of ways. He spent the most time in right field, which could be a spot for him in 2020 as well, but it’s likely that Hunter Dozier gets most of the starts there.
He finished his rookie campaign with a slash line of .293/.361/.360 with six RBI and five doubles through 83 plate appearances. McBroom could very well be the Royals’ best kept secret in 2020, but with the limited amount of playing time he had the season prior, it wouldn’t be shocking if he regressed this season.
McBroom only started five games at first base last year while O’Hearn started 88. Nick Pratto, who is the Royals’ plan at first base, won’t be ready for his Major League call-up for a few more years (2021 at the earliest, but with no minor league season this year, that’s a pipe dream now) and that means the Royals will need to figure out which of these two guys is the ideal starter until Pratto is ready.
O’Hearn will turn 27 in July while McBroom is 28 years old, so neither guy is the ideal age to have long-term at a position even though they both got late starts to their career with O’Hearn debuting in 2018 and McBroom in 2019.
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The Kansas City Royals don’t have to pick one for their roster, but only one can start on a regular basis and in a shortened season, that decision will be a big one for new manager Mike Matheny.