The Royals acquired Red Sox outfielder Andrew Benintendi, according to MLB Network reporter Jon Heyman, pending a physical examination. ESPN’s Jeff Passan reports that it will be an exchange of three teams with Mets. Benintendi, 26, was a .273 / .353 / .435 hitter in parts of five seasons with the Red Sox. The left-handed club will be eligible for free agency after the 2022 season.
Update: Passan Reports Outfielder Franchy Cordero will go to Boston with outfielder Khalil Lee going to the Mets.
The Cincinnati native was chosen in the first round by the Red Sox in 2015 at the University of Arkansas and became one of the biggest contenders in baseball. He finished second in the 2017 Rookie of the Year poll by hitting .271 / .352 / .424 with 20 home runs and 90 RBI. He shows a good gap power, hitting twice more than 40 pairs in one season. He was also a patient hitter, with a 10.5% career progress rate. He was a good contact hitter for the first two seasons, but saw his strikeout rise to 22.5 percent in 2019.
Benintendi is coming out of a terrible season in 2020, which may have caused him to fall from grace in Boston. He made 4 out of 39, with 17 eliminations in 14 games, before a rib cage injury ended his season prematurely. He will earn $ 6.6 million this year, and changing his salary may also have been a concern for the Red Sox, who are trying to maintain payroll flexibility.
The Royals has been looking to add a left-handed baton to hit, and Benintendi fits that bill. He has a significant platoon division with much less power against lefties and can sit against tough lefties.
Benintendi was a Gold Glove finalist in 2018 and 2019, although metrics rank him as a midfielder. Some have noticed that his defense has recently decreased, and he has also suffered a decline in speed this year, with his sprint speed going from 28.6 feet per second in 2016 to 26.6 feet / s this year. However, Benintendi may be suffering from a hip injury, and he has shown good base speed in the past, with more than 20 bases stolen in 2017 and 2018.
The Royals acquired Franchy Cordero in an exchange with the Fathers last summer by reliever Tim Hill. The 26-year-old has been subject to injuries throughout his career and has been limited to just 16 games with the Royals, reaching 0.211 / 0.286 / 0.447. The left-handed hitter has prodigious power and speed, but had trouble making contact with a strikeout rate of 35%.
Khalil Lee was the choice of the Royals in the third round in the 2016 draft outside of the DC area. The left-handed outfielder hit .264 / .363 / .372 with 8 home runs for Double-A Northwest Arkansas in 2019. Lee is a good defender in the center of the field and was second among all minor leagues with 53 steals that year . He has not developed much power and also suffers from a high strikeout rate. MLB Pipeline classified it as prospect number 8 in the Royals system.
This trade sends a clear signal that the Royals are seriously committed to fighting in the next two years. If they manage to get Benintendi back to his career numbers before the season shortened by the pandemic, they will have a player worth 2-4 WAR.