Whit Merrifield

Merrifield is a tough player to pin down for 2024. He broke into the majors in 2016 at the age of 27 and became a fantasy darling on account of his high average and speed. He hit above .300 twice and totaled as many as 45 steals in a season. After Merrifield's production fell off in 2022, the Royals shipped him north of the border to Toronto. He finished below league average by wRC+ last season (93), but the speedy 2B/OF hit 11 homers and stole 26 bases to once again put himself in the good graces of fantasy managers. Both sides declined his mutual option for 2024. Already entering his age-35 season, Merrifield is on the wrong side of the aging curve, and it's fair to wonder when his speed will evaporate. His power has always been modest and Merrifield can safely be categorized as a low-OBP guy given his career 6.2% walk rate. He makes consistent contact, but the quality of that contact is declining.

Merrifield was the subject of trade speculation since he broke out for the Royals in 2017, and the team finally dealt him to the Blue Jays last season. It's really a move that came a couple years late, as the veteran utility man had a career-worst .642 OPS for Kansas City prior to the deal. He fared better in Toronto with a .769 OPS in 44 games, so he's heading into 2023 with a slightly more positive outlook. The 34-year-old closed out last year with 11 home runs, 58 RBI, 70 runs and 16 stolen bases, with the steals representing a significant dip from his 2021 production (40 thefts). Joining the Blue Jays' potent lineup should provide a boost to Merrifield's counting stats in 2023, and he'll likely open spring training as the favorite to start at second base. Even if he does continue to rebound from his poor first half of 2021, Merrifield shouldn't be expected to rediscover his All-Star form from 2018 and 2019, when he had a 115 wRC+.

Since he's started every single game over the past three seasons, Merrifield has provided a bountiful totals in the count stats, most notably runs scored and stolen bases. His 40 steals last season put him second in the league behind only Starling Marte. Previously, he'd stated that he quits stealing bases once the Royals are out of postseason contention and that approach can be seen with only two steals in September along with no home runs. His power has been slowly on the decline, with his .117 ISO and 5.0% HR/FB last year being his lowest since his rookie season. While he's still hitting the ball hard -- Merrifield's 107.8 mph MaxEV was a four-year high -- he's putting more balls on the ground (40.7 GB% in 2021). The Royals will keep playing him, but his real-world usefulness as a hitter is becoming suspect after he posted a .711 OPS last season (.811 OPS in 2019). His playing time is likely safe for 2022, but the decline is happening fast.

Two-hit Whit continues to be a steady producer for fantasy players. It says something when a .282 batting average is a hitter's career-worst effort as was the case for Merrifield in 2020. The low average is not due to him striking out because his 12.5 K% last season was a career-best. It is just that Merrifield puts a lot of balls into play with a high-contact and declining-walk-rate approach, so his batted-ball fortunes pull his average one way or the other. Both in 2017 and 2020, his hit rate was at league average and his batting average was in the .280s. In 2018 and 2019, he had more dying quails, duck snorts and seeing-eye singles which pushed his batting average north of .300. He is a threat to run any time he is on base, and he is seemingly on base twice a game. Models of statistical consistency and health like this are rare; roster with confidence that he continues his course.

Merrifield ranked among the top 40 hitters in rotisserie baseball last season, but he was a second-rounder on average in the NFBC last March because of the 45 he posted in the SB column the year before and was a bit of a letdown at that acquisition cost. He was thrown out on the basepaths as many times as he was in 2018, in 25 fewer attempts. Perhaps because of his diminished efficiency, Merrifield's attempts were scaled back as the season wore on (20 attempts in the first half, 10 after the break). While Merrifield is relatively new to the scene, he's already going to be 31 on Opening Day and speed is usually the first skill to go as a player advances to this stage on the aging curve. The rest of the numbers look pretty safe given his bat-to-ball skills and expected volume, but if his SB chances are reduced further under new manager Mike Matheny, Merrifield will fall closer to the pack at second base.

Merrifield had plenty of skeptics after his out-of-nowhere 19-homer, 34-steal campaign in 2017, but the 30-year-old quieted his doubters and surpassed even the most optimistic projections. Though he noticed a minor power drop and a downturn in RBI largely fueled by the lack of talent flanking him, Merrifield improved by just about every other measure. Most of his value came from his .304 average and 45 stolen bases, with his production rendered more significant by the MLB-wide mean in both categories reaching their lowest levels since 1972. A .352 BABIP helped Merrifield uphold the lofty average, but he created some of his own good fortune by steadily raising his line-drive (29.8%) and hard-hit (36.9%) rates while posting a Statcast Sprint Speed that ranked in the 91st percentile. The team context around Merrifield won't be much better in 2019, but it may only further embolden manager Ned Yost to give him the green light to run.

Merrifield led the American League in stolen bases last season despite spending the first couple weeks in the minors, and he showed a surprising power stroke after hitting a mere two homers in 332 plate appearances in 2016. A dramatic leap in flyball rate -- from 29.8 percent to 40.5 percent -- and correction in his HR/FB (and likely a new baseball) fueled the power breakout, although the hard-hit data suggests Merrifield overachieved. Moreover, Merrifield hit 13 of his 19 homers at home, and Kauffman Stadium was the fourth-worst park for homers last season; simply put, he will have a hard time repeating that home-run output in 2018. He doesn't walk much at all, but Merrifield puts the ball in play consistently (14.0 percent strikeout rate), and that skill along with his speed should help Merrifield stick atop the Royals' batting order. Unfortunately, there will likely be a significantly worse team around him with so many of Kansas City's top players expected to leave via free agency this winter.

Merrifield was deceivingly solid last season, but his future prospects are dimmed by the reality that his performance was buoyed by a high batting average with little in the way of peripheral stats, including just a 5.7 percent walk rate and a .109 ISO. The 28-year-old is likely to be soft on upside, and a repeat of last year's half-season performance over a full campaign would be a success. Whether the Royals allow the Swiss Army knife to accumulate that much playing time is another issue altogether. Positional versatility might be the biggest feather in Merrifield's cap as well as his greatest utility to fantasy owners in 2017, as it not only allows for some roster flexibility, but it also gives him more opportunities for playing time. However, he's unlikely to be more than a placeholder for the Royals, or for fantasy owners in 2017.