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Billy Hamilton 2019 Outlook: Outfielder Must Maximize His Speed To Return Value
6 years agoKansas City Royals outfielder Billy Hamilton should get a good chance to stretch his legs often in 2019 thanks to signing with a team that’s known to be aggressive on the basepaths. The Royals’ 117 stolen bases ranked sixth in the Majors last season, which may help Billy regain his 50-steal potential after “only” swiping 34 bags (on 44 attempts) in ‘18 alongside an empty .236/.299/.327 slash line over 556 plate appearances. Hamilton fell out of favor with the Reds as his bat simply became untenable thanks to a swinging-strike rate that rose from 7.9% to 10.2% and a zone-contact rate that promptly fell to 84% from 88.8%. It’s also worth noting his fly-ball rate rose about five percentage points, which is what got him into trouble in 2015 (when he hit .226). His only real asset is speed and he needs to hit grounders in order to put that to use. Perhaps KC can revert that, but he’s still likely to bat ninth and will need to stave off Chris Owings for consistent playing time. Even if that all clicks, he’s still a zero in power categories and therefore our staff rankings have him at 205th overall despite a post-signing ADP of 148.
