A couple disclaimers here. This is based largely on Statcast data. There’s a lot more that goes into this, and I do look at injuries in 2018 and all that, but it’s really driven by the data that doesn’t always tell the whole story. So save your bellyaching. Here are four guys who have a chance to be a big bargain and how the Royals might fit in if needed.

Brian Dozier

In his prime years of age-29 and 30, he hit a combined .269/.349/.522 with 76 homers and 34 steals in 43 attempts. Then he went out last year and hit a combined .215/.305/.391 with 21 homers and 12 steals in 15 attempts for the Twins and Dodgers. What happened? Dozier cited a knee injury from a bone bruise in April as a reason for his tough season. And it’s worth noting that his barrels per plate appearance dropped from 5.5 to 4.3. He was at 5.8 in 2016. His hard hit percentage dropped significantly from 34.5 percent to 28.7 percent. It was at 36.2 percent in 2016. His average exit velocity dropped a bit and his average launch angle, which was already in a good spot went up a little bit. Maybe some loop in his swing from not being able to plant quite as well? And after showing 9.7 fielding runs above average in 2017, he dropped exactly to average in 2018. He’ll be 32, so maybe he’s just in decline as second basemen tend to do, but he has a chance to bring a really nice return. Where the Royals fit in is murky at best, but if they decide to deal Whit Merrifield and want to have a bridge for Nicky Lopez, they could do worse. They could also shift Lopez to third, where he could handle things defensively. I’m not sure there’s a great fit here, but I think some team will get good value from Dozier.

Drew Pomeranz

If he’s healthy could be the title of the Pomeranz biography, so that’s all that matters here, but if the Royals are looking for some depth in the rotation who could also shift to the bullpen. He made 32 starts, threw 173.2 innings and posted a 3.32 ERA with a strikeout per inning in 2017. In the American League East. This past year, he only made 11 starts, threw 74 innings and posted a 6.08 ERA. Injuries, man. But what happened? Based on the numbers, he gave up a lot more squared up balls and the average ball hit against him was hit much harder. His cutter, while still effective in 2018, went from a big time swing and miss offering to one that plenty of contact was made on. But really, it’s a velocity thing with his four seam fastball velocity dropping from 91.4 MPH to 89.5. That’s…precipitous. It had been on the decline for the last few years, but that seems excessive and worth taking a chance on if he’s healthy. You know, maybe he isn’t and it’s not worth it, but he’s a big time potential bargain who could be a big time trade chip if he comes through.

Ervin Santana

Good ol’ friend, Erv, had a pretty rough go of it in 2018. He only threw 24.2 innings, so you won’t find him on the Statcast leaderboards unless you update the minimum batted ball events, so the sample is small enough that you could just argue it’s worth throwing out and not even mentioning. For a guy who went 23-19 with a 3.32 ERA in 392.2 innings the previous two seasons, it’s probably fair to wonder if 2018 was a fluke due to the finger injury that basically cost him the season. I’d argue yes. The hard hit percentage in the limited action was way up from the previous two years. He allowed barrels in 13.8 percent of batted balls. That’s insane. There’s no way he was healthy, and it seems on the surface like it’s not the sort of thing that is likely to linger through an offseason. His spin rates really tell the story with his sinker dropping more than 100 revolutions per second and his four seamer dropping even more than that. Actually, outside of his changeup, all his pitches saw a big-time decreased spin rate. Don’t tell me it wasn’t the finger injury. He went from getting a swing and miss on 38.4 percent of swings on the slider to 14.8 percent. His changeup whiff percentage dropped from 22.2 percent to 13.3 percent. This is a great buy-low opportunity for a guy this front office knows and the fanbase loves. Yes, he’ll be 36, but I’d give him a contract.

Jonathan Schoop

He isn’t technically available yet, but it seems like he’s a good bet to be non-tendered by the Brewers. And with good reason. He hit .233/.266/.416 last season and the peripherals are ugly. The 3.8 percent walk rate would make Alcides Escobar blush. The 23 percent strikeout rate doesn’t fit the profile either. So why is he a bargain? Oblique injuries, man. He saw a drop in barrels per plate appearance percentage from five to 3.6 after sitting at 4.9 in 2016. His hard hit percentage, which sat above average the last two years dropped to 30.6 percent this year. His average exit velocity dropped as well. And so did his launch angle. Basically everything about his profile sort of fell off a cliff. And guess what? He’s entering his age-27 season.

So I think he’s a big-time bounce back candidate. The guy hit .293/.338/.503 in 2017 and got MVP votes (finishing 12^th). Like Dozier, he rated very well defensively in 2017 before dropping to merely average in 2018. His value to the Royals doesn’t depend on a Merrifield deal either (though it would make the most sense). Schoop has the profile of a player who can handle third adequately and he’s played a very little bit of shortstop in the big leagues. You likely don’t want him there every day, but if Mondesi needs a day with a guy like Ian Kennedy on the mound, Schoop should be able to handle it. Given the kind of season he’s capable of turning in, the Royals would do far worse than maybe having Schoop handle third against righties while Dozier/Cuthbert sits, second against lefties while Whit could slide to the outfield for either Goodwin or Phillips and shortstop on occasion to give Mondesi a breather until Nicky Lopez arrives. I really like this idea if he does, in fact, get non-tendered. If he doesn’t, I just wrote too many words about him.

Others fit here. Daniel Murphy could be a bargain with the bat after injuries limited him early in the season before he hit his stride. They’d have to move one or both of Jorge Soler and Jorge Bonifacio because Murphy is a DH at this point, but I guess it’s possible. The same would be true if they brought back Lucas Duda or brought in Logan Morrison, both of whom underperformed some based on their batted ball data or are due for bounce backs. And one other thought on Bonifacio. He has a chance to really come back from a bad season. His numbers were obviously down across the board and you have to wonder how much that had to do with not being on, well, steroids. But even so, I think he’s a guy to watch. Maybe it doesn’t happen, but I’d give him at least a 30 percent chance to break out in a big way in 2019 if he gets the shot.

Twins Vitals

Twins vs. Royals

Pitching

Offense

Twins Projected Lineup

The Matchups

Friday

Santiago has had a better season than the numbers would indicate. Prior to his last start, he had posted a 2.76 ERA through his first seven and was averaging about six innings per start. Regression comes at you fast, though, and he allowed six runs in 2.2 innings against the Indians his last time out to see all his numbers balloon. With those six runs came three home runs, which doubled his season total. Now the question is if he can get back on track and shut down the Royals like he did in the season’s opening week or if he’ll continue to regress more to the pitcher he was when he came to the Twins initially last season.

He’s mostly a two-pitch pitcher throwing his four seam fastball about 60 percent of the time and his changeup about a quarter of the time. The changeup is often a very, very good pitch, but it does flatten out from time to time and, when that happens, it’s quite hittable. He also mixes in a curve, slider and a cutter. This season, the power has come on the fastball. He’s allowed five home runs on that pitch, but the cutter and slider have been hit the hardest in the limited sample we have of them being put in play. The Royals have largely struggled against lefties, but Santiago has allowed a .429/.571/.905 line to them this season, so something’s gotta give here. He’s also found a way to actually be better in the third time through the order this season, which you don’t see all that often.

Karns has been very, very good his last few times out, but he’s returning to the scene of where his ERA got out of whack in the first series of the season when he gave up four runs in 2/3 of an inning in relief against the Twins. As a starter, he has a 3.63 ERA and has found the strikeout pitch of late, fanning 26 in his last 12.1 innings. He’s recorded 18 swinging strikes in each of his last two starts and has been in double digits in that category in his last five starts and in six of seven total. He’s not likely to get too deep into games, but if he can keep doing what he’s doing, five or six innings of that will be just fine.

Saturday

The Twins acquired Mejia from the Giants in exchange for Eduardo Nunez, a player who I thought the Royals would try very hard to acquire this offseason. That doesn’t have anything to do with Mejia, but I’m still surprised they didn’t. It’s also interesting in a way that he made his big league debut and only appearance of the season last year against the Royals. He’ll turn 24 in a month and is actually a pretty decent prospect, though there’s still plenty of work to be done for him.

Mejia throws two fastballs, a changeup and a slider, but he lives on the fastballs that average about 93 MPH with some movement. If you’re looking for a pitch that’s been most effective in his four big league games, you likely won’t find one as they’ve all been rocked pretty hard. Of the 16 hits he’s allowed in 11.2 big league innings, nine of them have gone for extra bases. That seems bad. There’s not much of a big league sample, but Mejia has yet to pitch more than five innings and hasn’t even been able to complete three innings in two of his starts. Of course, he’s a young lefty, so the Royals might have some serious trouble.

Kennedy will make his return in this one, and the Royals and Royals fans couldn’t be more excited. He’s missed his last two starts with a hamstring issue and is still coming off his worst start of the season against the White Sox when he allowed five runs in 4.1 innings before having to exit. All in all, Kennedy has pretty much been Kennedy this season, only with slightly fewer strikeouts than you’d expect. The Twins power concerns me against Kennedy, but he didn’t allow a home run in a loss to them in early April, so maybe now that the offense is going a little better, he can continue that.

Sunday

Hughes is a cautionary tale for why you don’t give players new deals when you don’t have to. He signed a three year, $24 million deal prior to the 2014 season and was really good. He posted the best strikeout to walk ratio in big league history. So the Twins tore up his deal and gave him a five year deal for $58 million instead. Since then, he’s gone 16-18 with a 4.90 ERA in 257.1 innings over two plus seasons. You see what he’s done this year. Not great, Bob.

Hughes has seen his fastball velocity drop from the 93-94 he threw with in 2014 to about 90 MPH in 2017, which is probably a big chunk of the cause of his struggles. He throws that a lot, too, about 42 percent of the time. He also has a solid curve, a cutter and a changeup. The fastball actually hasn’t been crushed too bad. That’s been reserved mostly for the changeup and the cutter. Nothing has been hit poorly, though, so Royals hitters should enjoy seeing both a righty and a righty they should theoretically be able to hit. This is kind of crazy, but in at bats that end on the first pitch, Hughes has allowed a .632 average and a 1.263 slugging percentage. That accounts for three of the seven home runs he’s allowed this season. But even if the Royals swing early and don’t find success, Hughes has found struggles the third time through the order, allowing a .349/.391/.605 line when facing a lineup a third time.

Hammel has been terrible. There’s no way around it. He’s made eight starts this season. Two have been very good. One has been acceptable. The rest have been downright bad. That’s going to have to change. As it stands right now, the Royals don’t really have another option and they aren’t going to move away from a guy in the second month of a two-year deal, but he’ll be pitching for his rotation life soon enough. There were some encouraging signs from Hammel after moving to the stretch exclusively, but he was brutal against the Yankees on Tuesday and will need a bounceback in this start to gain some confidence, both in himself and from the organization.

With lefties going in the first two games and the Royals being stymied by the Twins this season, I probably shouldn’t feel very good about this series, but I feel like they find a way to take two of three by beating one of the lefties and Hughes.