Last winter, Kendrys Morales turned down a qualifying offer from the Mariners and held out for a multi-year deal that never came. This year, Morales wasn’t eligible for a qualifying offer after getting signed by the Twins in June and traded Seattle to July, but that’s OK – he got his multi-year deal from the Kansas City Royals, to the tune of two years and $17 million.
Source: Royals agree with Kendrys Morales on a two-year deal worth $17M. Performance bonuses could take it up to $18.5M.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) December 11, 2014
The 31-year old Morales will be replacing Billy Butler in Kansas City’s lineup as their DH, but is coming off a dreadful year that makes Butler’s 2014 look downright productive. In 98 games in 2014, Morales hit just .218/.274/.338 with only eight homers. There really aren’t many positive things to say about Morales this past season – he was bad with the Twins, bad with the Mariners, bad against righties, bad against lefties, bad at home, and bad on the road.
If he can regain his form from 2012-13, when Morales launched a total of 45 homers and posted a 119 wRC+, the deal should work out pretty well for Kansas City. But if the Morales we saw last year is the standard going forward, it might be a chore for the Royals to get production out of their DH position.
