The Royals have added some versatility to both their infield and outfield mixes, announcing the signing of former D-backs utility man Chris Owings to a one-year contract for the 2019 season. Owings, a client of ACES, will reportedly receive a $3MM guarantee and can earn another $500K worth of incentives.
On the surface, this seems to be quite a sensible match for all involved. Owings, 27, is a nice bounceback candidate who could see action all over the field in Kansas City. He was recently non-tendered by the Diamondbacks, who elected not to pay him a projected $3.6MM. As Owings has already topped five years of MLB service, the Royals won’t have any future control rights to look forward to. He’ll once again be a free agent next winter.
Owings has spent most of his career playing up the middle in the infield, though he also has spent plenty of time in the outfield (right and center, primarily) and has logged some innings at third base. Unless he’s offered a chance to earn regular time at the hot corner, or a trade creates space elsewhere, odds are he’ll be tasked with moving around quite a bit in Kansas City.
The organization is slated to cover most of its middle-infield innings with Adalberto Mondesi and Whit Merrifield. Owings can support that middle infield pairing while buttressing the Royals’ roster at the other spots where he has experience. The Royals third base situation remains largely unresolved at present. Meanwhile, K.C.’s three top outfielders (Alex Gordon, Brian Goodwin, Brett Phillips) all hit from the left side, making Owings a natural platoon match (though he has mostly neutral splits in his career).
The defensive flexibility is obviously nice, particularly since Owings has graded well at second and fantastically in the outfield. He’s not exactly a defensive-metric darling at short, but he can clearly handle that spot as well.
All said, there should be plenty of opportunity for Owings — supposing, at least, that he can turn things around with the bat. While he has at times shown an ability to hit at or at least near the league-average rate, Owings is coming off of a dreadful 2018 campaign in which he slashed just .206/.272/.302 with four home runs and 11 steals over 309 plate appearances.
To be sure, Owings was likely somewhat unfortunate to post a .265 batting average on balls in play last year. But he didn’t exactly knock the socks off of Statcast’s fancy machinery, with his batted-ball profile spitting out only a .281 xwOBA. That did land well above his .251 xOBA, but it also represented the fourth-straight season in which Owings fell below .300 in xwOBA.
It’s tough to find much to love about Owings’s recent track record offensively. His walk rate did tick up to a personal-high 7.8%, but he also struck out at a 24.3% rate. Owings’s in-zone contact rate fell to a personal-low 85.9%. Meanwhile, he put the ball in the air much more than ever before (38.3% FB rate) without the dingers to show for it (5.1% HR/FB).
Of course, the Royals won’t need Owings to produce even at a league-average rate to see a return on this contract. If he can return to being a slightly below-average bat, Owings will meet the loftiest realistic expectations of his new organization.
Robert Murray of The Athletic first reported the agreement (via Twitter). Jon Heyman of Fancred (Twitter link) and Jeffrey Flanagan of MLB.com (Twitter link) provided details on the terms.
Seems like a good deal on both sides. I think owings takes home between $1.5-$2.5 mil.
Welp I had it right in my mind but didn’t type it down.
Since you are the advocate, could you have got him more money? Or you could have limited the amount of games he had to play.
He will probably be flipped at the deadline depending on the contract KC gives him
He is good
Good at what? Lol
Being good
Hmm. Makes since to me!
Thank you
Yes, He is good…..all the time.
You forgot the creepy smile
gotta love how the author had to dig real deap to produce unfavorable stats.
if this was 2000, his offensive output/with ab’s and batting average put him near top…oh yuh, he cam steal bases too…hidden gem as a cather id say
I literally cannot understand the second paragraph of this post at all. Is this written in some other language?
And he is entering his prime.
Way to go KC!
Solid signing at least to bring a little credibility to Kansas City
6th!
Curious as to what the incentives are to reach that 500k incentives bonus. Doubt he’ll see a ton of playing time. Good pick up though for a club needing to rebuild.
Seems a bit steep of a salary. Yes, he can play multiple positions, but he doesn’t excel at any of them. He also struggles to get on base with light power numbers.
Well, another one I got wrong in the FA prediction contest. I am like 0/12.
Same here buddy. Wish I could get a mulligan:/
He wasn’t in the FA prediction contest though….
Well I still wouldn’t have pegged him going to Kansas anyway. White Sox maybe, Kansas no.
This is a good chance to lie and say that you would have had it if he was in the contest.
Haha true! Well maybe I’ll catch the next opportunity!
There is no major league team in Kansas.
You could look at it positively, and consider that you’re perfect so far.
Signed,
A 2017 Browns fan
Great deal for the Royals. This is exactly the type of guy you can flip at the deadline for a prospect, and they got him cheap, in his prime. Would like to see the Orioles do this.
he’ll need a large sample size of AB’s and good hitting stats to be flipped. Isn’t he primarily a shortstop? He couldn’t even win the ss position at AZ. Who’s going to want him?
He’d probably figure as a bench utility option on a small market contender or a big market trying to stay under the luxury tax down the stretch.
Coming from a Dbacks fan, I’ll be honest, he’s terrible. His defense at a few positions is serviceable, but he can’t hit to save his life. Great example of a AAAA player. Rakes at AAA, terrible in the MLB
My thoughts exactly. He seems more like a mid season call up guy when an injury happens at the ML level for depth purposes.
This is exactly what his role should be limited to. Certainly not a $3M guaranteed deal. I definitely expected him to be a Spring Training invite coming in on a MiLB deal
Yep. Dbacks knew they were doing. $3M MLB deal. Ouch.
Eh, “Terrible” is overstating it. He had a bad season. But the year previous he had an OPS of .740. Add in the positional flexibility and the fact he’s only 27 – I certainly don’t mind the guaranteed contract.
So if you had 3M in payroll space laying around, why would you sign Owings and not sign Matt Moore? Nothing against Owings, but if he maximizes his value (decent spare part on a contending team), he’ll get a lot less on July 31 than Moore, if Moore can come back to anywhere near his previous value. Even if Owings has a greater chance to bounce back than Moore, utility IFs aren’t going to get you much back at the deadline.
You’d get a lot more for Moore…..more or less. (sic)…….
Dont think theyre worried about the deadline with this signing. Theyve prioritized grabbing a backup shortstop since the offseason started and he can also allow Whit to move to the outfield some days or go out there himself to spell all those lefties. If you can move him at the deadline thats awesome but I think this was more about filling a hole until Nicky Lopez is ready.
Well first, we don’t know that they didn’t try to sign Moore. Second, over the past two seasons combined Moore’s ERA has been around 6. So he’s far from a sure thing bargain.
If missing out on Matt Moore is ruining your offseason, you may want to brace yourself for a really rough regular season.
That fact that Moore got a MLB contract for 3M, give or take, is proof that teams are making so much money these days, they literally don’t know what to do with it….
But if I’m the Royals, a noble and eminently likeable small market franchise, getting a reserve middle IFer isn’t exactly my highest priority. EVERY signing (or trade for that matter) has to be seen through the prism of my next window of opportunity.
And payroll and player development expenditures all come out of the same pot. Wouldn’t that 3M have been better spent on improving acquisition and development than a vain attempt to go from 65 wins to 67 wins? KC hasn’t done a real good job lately drafting and on the international front; strange, since they had been so good in those areas 10 years ago. But it’s an area that certainly needs improvement; MAYBE, 3M helps the cause.
Owings likely has more raw value than Moore…..but Moore has more potential value (saleable/tradeable) than Owings, simply due to the position they play.
It’s not about wins it’s about not overusing guys like Mondesi and Merrifield, whom they fully expect to provide a lot of wins when they do turn the corner. I’m not convinced that not signing Chris Owings would have sent 3M to the prospect pool as they still need a backup shortstop so it would have just been spent on some other run of the mill utility guy.
I think you’re overvaluing 3 Million dollars; for most of us that’s life-changing money, yes, but for a MLB team it’s a rounding error. A Win, on the open market, has a value of around 7 million dollars, so 3 million is basically a replacement-level player, or just slightly above that. Owings isn’t very good, but he can at least stand around a bunch of positions and steal bases. He just can’t hit at all.
Nice pickup Dayton
“Meanwhile, K.C.’s three top outfielders (Alex Gordon, Brian Goodwin, Brett Phillips) all hit from the left side, making Owings a natural platoon match”
This isn’t particularly accurate. You can easily add Soler and Bonifacio to that statement – both RH hitters.
MLBTR and most national MLB publications don’t know much about the Royals. They’re unsexy and in a rebuild. They don’t have a rock star GM that rings the bell on prospects. Dayton Moore is patiently building a contending team that can execute fundamentals to win as opposed to bringing in glamour boys that pad their individual statistics. Worse yet, there’s no juicy, gossipy, soap opera stuff going on there.
Moore and the Royals snuck up on the sports media 5 years ago leaving the befuddled. It’s going to happen again.
“It’s going to happen again” In 2045.
Lol Royals fan here. DM hasn’t made very many good decisions since 2016 and our drafting has been horrible. Somehow DM has augmented a weak farm system with a crop of college arms and now thinks we’re ready to compete in 2021. Complete garbage.
Dumb Dayton Moore got 5 decent young starting pitchers for the major league team the past year or so. More coming. None of the other genius rebuilders come close. Some will wash out. Some will wind up in the bullpen. A few will be very good.
The Royals team that competed and then went to the WS twice was not built in a year or two.
Royals Fan living in Phoenix love this deal. Chris Owings is a grinder and versatile and a good clubhouse guy. The D-Backs has a ton of middle infielders and he didn’t get an everyday chance last year. Just a solid pickup for 3 million.
I agree with Bubba. The DBacks kept bringing in utility infielder after utility infielder and proven guys were relegated to the bench. I had a personal interest in watching this team. It was frustrating as hell. Owings is a good, solid ball player. Perhaps not a superstar, but he’s not going to hurt you. I felt badly how he was treated within the organization (remember, this same club got rid of Segura), so I am happy to see he landed somewhere after he was non-tendered and got a nice little pay day. The current AZ staff is in love with their middle infield, as much as the previous staff. It’s not smart business to manage with emotions
.
He takes Alcides Escobar’s place on the roster. He’ll be moved around the field along with Rosell Herrera, who plays SS well.
A roll of the dice hoping their coaches and/or team atmosphere** can improve him.
If he’s traded at the deadline it’ll be to save some money as he’s not working out. At best Royals get back a career minor leaguer.
** Like the Indians and a few other organizations, the Royals do not look to trade 50% of their roster each year. They believe in their players as people that are a part of the team, not as walking talking commodities with numbers attached to them. Which is why they are holding onto Salvy and Merrifield.
The phrase “bounceback candidate” should be banned. It just means that he stinks.
Not necessarily
Nobody’s calling Alcides Escobar a bounceback candidate
Is this a setup to a Merrifield trade with Owings taking over a 2nd?
Probably not.
The Royals like Merrifield. He has expressed that he loves playing in KC, for the Royals, and wants to stay through the rebuild.
Unless you’re like the Phillies, Padres, White Sox and a few others, the objective of a rebuild is to develop a large core of guys that can play fundamental baseball together and work off of one another; as opposed to throwing a bunch of stuff up against the wall to see what sticks. Merrfield is a core player. Why should they trade him?
Al Avila is also going about it the right way in Detroit. Might want to keep an eye out there for fun.
You trade him because he is over 30 and won’t likely be part of the core of players to make the next WS run for the Royals. He is a great lead off hitter, steals bases and plays solid defense at 2B. He should have some value and if you can get a few solid young prospects it could bring about a quicker return to being competitive. Nicky Lopez is also only a few years from the majors so Owings could make a great transition.
IF Nicky Lopez works out, that’s great. Then the Royals can use Merrifield as either an OF, or a Zobrist/Marwin Gonzalez-type utility player.
Doubtful. I guess they’re not counting on Nicky Lopez to make the team out of spring training. Unless he gets pushed to third base.
Royals are a joke
I thought he would be behind harper and manny in terms of AAV.
Remember when this guy was deemed ‘untouchable’ as a prospect? When you have a phenom you know. You can pretty much deal everyone else.
Ned Yost loves “gritty” utility guys thatcant hit a lick. Throw Owings on the pile.