The Royals Shouldn’t Be Interested in a Mike Moustakas Reunion
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On Thursday, the Cincinnati Reds made the decision to designate infielder Mike Moustakas for assignment. The club actively chose to do this despite still owing him $22 million ($18M for the 2023 campaign and then a $4M buyout for 2024). From the time of the DFA, Cincinnati has 10 days to either trade Moustakas or release him and allow him to sign with another big-league squad. One of those possibilities is a lot stronger than the other.
Kansas City Royals fans are quite familiar with Moustakas, who slashed .251/.306/.430 in just under eight full seasons as a Royal. He also made a pair of All-Star teams and won a World Series with the team, cementing his name forever as one of the more important players in franchise history. He was traded to the Milwaukee Brewers midseason back in 2018, playing there for the remainder of that season and all of 2019 before inking a lucrative four-year, $64M contract with the Reds.
While Moustakas did make another All-Star team as a member of the Brewers in 2019, he hasn't been the same player since then. A combination of age and injuries has rendered him largely ineffective, with the culmination of that being the Thursday DFA by Cincinnati. Despite some fans clamoring for the Royals to bring him back, it doesn't make much sense at all for Kansas City to be interested in a reunion. Let's compare two players' three-season stretches from 2020-2022, starting with Player A:
- 184 games played
- .216/.300/.383 (.683 OPS)
- 81 wRC+
- 9.2 BB%, 24.0 K%
- .167 ISO
- -0.5 fWAR, -1.8 bWAR
Now let's move on to Player B:
- 317 games played
- .226/.297/.391 (.688 OPS)
- 88 wRC+
- 8.5 BB%, 26.6 K%
- .165 ISO
- -1.3 fWAR, -3.5 bWAR
Player A is Mike Moustakas. Player B is Hunter Dozier.
Dozier, three years younger than Moustakas (31 years old to Moustakas' 34), is someone who has been subject to mass criticism in recent years and even some trade rumors this offseason. The veteran infielder is set to enter year three of a four-year, $25M contract extension that contains a club option for 2025 that will surely be declined. He, like Moustakas, is a Royals first-round draft pick who has been a clear negative at the plate over the past three seasons. Signing Moustakas doesn't guarantee any improvement over Dozier in the batter's box.
In the field, not much changes. Dozier has spent time at third base, third base and in the outfield in recent seasons, serving as a very clear negative at the hot corner while being questionable at best when logging innings at any other spot. Moustakas' time has been spent at either third base, second base or first base, and he's been a negative or neutral defender in all of those alignments since 2020. That, in conjunction with the aforementioned injuries and an 11th percentile ranking in Baseball Savant's Arm Strength metric in 2022, makes him being a significant defensive upgrade from Dozier extremely unlikely moving forward.
A platoon situation isn't even beneficial, as Dozier has a career 97 wRC+ against lefties and a 95 wRC+ against righties. Moustakas' career 101 figure when facing right-handed pitching is a plus, but those figures have been 88 and 81 in 2021 and 2022. The difference in any area simply isn't worth an investment, even at the league minimum salary once Moustakas (presumably) doesn't get picked up on waivers.
The Royals already have one negative-producing player who can man either third or first base. That same player could be headed out of town before the 2023 season starts and if that happens, it almost surely results from Kansas City eating a noticeable chunk of his remaining contract in a trade just to get him off the books long-term and free up playing time for someone else. That someone else, much to the disappointment of some fans, shouldn't be Moustakas. He'll always live in Royals history as a good player who helped bring the organization a championship, but he doesn't have much left to offer at this point in his career.
