The Royals have activated first baseman Lucas Duda from the disabled list and optioned outfielder Paulo Orlando to Triple-A, tweets Rustin Dodd of The Athletic.
Duda had been sidelined since May 14th due to plantar fasciitis. Although manager Ned Yost had initially given reporters a three-week stint as the high end for a DL stint, the recovery obviously took almost twice that long. The injury is often difficult to predict, of course; it’s affected other notable baseball players for unexpected lengths of time, including Albert Pujols, Corey Dickerson, and, recently, Jay Bruce.
Regardless, today’s return gives Duda ample time to establish his value as a potential trade chip for the rebuilding Royals prior to the non-waiver trade deadline at the end of July. After an injury-plagued second half in 2017, the long-time Mets slugger was only able to secure a one-year, $3.5MM pact with Kansas City. Even prior to this season’s injury, Duda hasn’t shown the same type of power output he managed across the 2014-2015 campaigns, when he mashed 57 homers and put up a .249/.350/.483 batting line. His walk rate this year is barely half of his career average, as well. If he can return to form, there are plenty of teams who would likely be interested in adding him for such a small salary.
Notably, 26-year-old Hunter Dozier survived the roster crunch created by Duda’s reinstatement. Though he’s hit just .227/.281/.353 across 128 plate appearances and figures to see a dramatic reduction in his playing time, the team clearly favors him on the active roster over the 32-year-old Orlando, who’s made 907 trips to the plate for the Royals since debuting in 2015.
Duda hit .256 with four home runs and 19 RBIs in 133 at-bats before landing on the list for plantar fasciitis in his right foot.
It’s not the worst diagnosis in the world, chronic though treatable. I believe Pujols is someone else with it.
With that being said… Wonder how he does.
assuming he hits in the coming weeks…they ought to be able to get at least a warm body for him. I think the Royals would be happy to just get his last 1.5m off the books.
So…. PTBNL seems to be ideal.
Don’t knock PTBNL ‘prospects’
keep saying this over and over… They surprise
I would be interested in seeing a list of PTBNL’s that surprised people. I’m not disagreeing with you, I’m genuinely just curious after the claim. I don’t know anyone’s ever tracked such a list, and it would be interesting to see if you’re right.
PTBNL isn’t always an under the radar type. It can be a known top prospect. There could be a bookkeeping reason why they can’t announce a player at a given time – for example Trea Turner – or a team is still deciding between two equal players.
Ptnl? I’ll name one
Trey turner
I agree lowtalker, but “Trea Turner” rule.
You have to give another example, otherwise people could assume Trea was an anomaly.
“ . . . otherwise people could assume Trea was an anomaly.”
And one which won’t occur again as the rule has been changed.
“And one which won’t occur again as the rule has been changed.”
Trea Ptbnl trade was unique, even if they didn’t change the rules; weird one, that would likely never happen again or for a long time.
I’m talking about Ptbnl in general. I believe it is this game’s most underrated asset (by fans)
I could be wrong, but wasn’t Michael Brantley a PTBNL?
Pretty sure the new CBA says you can’t do that anymore.
“Duda hit .256 . . . “
Batting average, xabial? What exactly do you believe you are telling us with BA?
“Batting average, xabial? What exactly do you believe you are telling us with BA?”
Trying to tell you, he’s not a scrub.
BA doesn’t really show you that
It has taken him a 306 babip (about 25 points higher than his career average) to get to that meager .250 BA
Couple that with an ISO 70 points off his career mark and his Walk rate disappearing completely (currently 6.2%, or about half his norm) and yes, it does indicate he was playing like a Scrub – a conclusion supported further by his 0.0 WAR (or exactly replacement level)
BABIP is stadium-dependent. You should expect a higher BABIP when playing in larger ballparks, because HRs are excluded from the stat.
Would-be HRs that do not go over the wall do not increase babip, they usually get caught by OFers – and that decreases babip by both increasing the numbers of balls in play and the number of outs on sad balls
“You should expect a higher BABIP when playing in larger ballparks . . . “
That would appear to be a question of fact, either it’s true or it isn’t. Do you have any source which confirms your expectation? Gotta be someplace that compiles BABIP by ballpark.
Although it will not be because of HRs as he claims, theoretically more ground to cover does slightly increase hits. At most you’re probably talking a point or two increase on on average to babip though, and nowhere near enough to create the .025 over career average Duda currently sits at.
That said, it’s unimportant to begin with as well as up until they moved the walls in 2015, Citi Field had roughly the same amount of fair territory as Kauffman – and that is where Duda has spent the majority of his career.
So if his theory is true in Kauffman, it was also true in Citi – thereby canceling out the supposed increase and putting us right back to the roughly 025 outlier
It also depends on the type of hitter. If you’re a gap-to-gap guy who can use all fields, then it makes sense. If you’re hitting ground balls into the shift like Lucas Duda, the amount of space in left center field is irrelevant.
As a Royals fan, Duda is on the list with Alcides Escobar, Jason Hammel and Ian Kennedy. If I’m Dayton Moore I don’t even scout the player, the first person who offers me a trade with a person that is active and in their system, I take it.
“ As a Royals fan . . . the first person who offers me a trade with a person who is active and in their system, I take it.”
Cool, and congratulations! You are the new employer of Jacoby Ellsbury. Duda might even be able to help the Yanks a little.
I thought about adding the qualifier that we don’t take on any money. Thought that might be assumed 🙂
“Do you have to quote the sentence you want to critique every time you reply?”
Well, technically I don’t have to do it. But I’ve found that it’s frequently difficult if not impossible in a lengthy sub thread to tell who and which point someone is responding to otherwise. If this forum had greater depth to its threaded comments it might not be necessary, but here we are. I’m willing to sacrifice some economy of words and space in favor of clarity. YMMV.
Jay Bruce also has plantar fasciitis and the Mets kept him out there.until he hit the DL.