<\/p>\n
After a disappointing 85-game campaign with the Orioles and Phillies in 2024 (97 wRC+; 0.2 fWAR), Hays found his groove in Cincinnati last year. In 416 plate appearances, he hit .266 with 15 home runs, a 105 wRC+, and 1.2 fWAR.<\/p>\n
The 30-year-old didn\u2019t provide much defensively a year ago, as illustrated by his +1 OAA and 0 FRV. However, he can play both corner outfield positions, and he was a masher against left-handed pitchers. <\/p>\n
He hit .319 with a 155 wRC+ against lefties a season ago. That was much better than his .249 average and 88 wRC+ against righties.<\/p>\n
With Collins likely in left field and Jac Caglianone<\/a> in right field, the Royals do not need an \u201ceveryday\u201d outfielder right now. They need someone who can rotate between both corners to give Caglianone or Collins a spell. <\/p>\n Hays would fit that role perfectly, especially considering his lefty-mashing tendencies. Furthermore, he would not cost the Royals much either, whether in terms of AAV (his current market value is around $5.13 million, according to Spotrac) or years (he is likely to get only a one-year deal).<\/p>\n If the Royals can\u2019t make that big trade for Boston\u2019s Jarren Duran<\/a> or St. Louis\u2019 Brendan Donovan<\/a>, Hays may be the cheaper consolation prize who can hold things down in the Kansas City outfield as a semi-regular until the Trade Deadline, at the very least. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.justbaseball.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After a disappointing 85-game campaign with the Orioles and Phillies in 2024 (97 wRC+; 0.2 fWAR), Hays found his groove in Cincinnati last year. In 416 plate appearances, he hit .266 with 15 home runs, a 105 wRC+, and 1.2 fWAR. The 30-year-old didn\u2019t provide much defensively a year ago, as illustrated by his +1 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2229674,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2229673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Three-Free-Agent-Bats-the-Royals-Should-Target.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2229673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2229673"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2229673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2229675,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2229673\/revisions\/2229675"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2229674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2229673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2229673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2229673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}