One of the bigger surprises of the offseason was the Kansas City Royals signing of free agent Mike Moustakas, their hot corner of the last 6 years, to a one-year deal for $6.5 million with a mutual option (that I feel comfortable saying will not get picked up). Many analysts saw gaps in Moustakas’s game last season leading into his first crack at free agency, mainly his lack of defense and baserunning ability.
So far this season, Moustakas seems to be putting some of those doubts to rest. As of May 4, Moustakas has already accrued 1.0 WAR; if you believe that a win is currently worth about $9.5 million, it’s safe to say the Royals are already getting more than what they paid for (shocker). He has been even better this year at the plate so far as he’s currently slashing .298/.333/.565 with a career high 135 wRC+.
The first question mark surrounding Moustakas that scared teams away this past offseason was his defense. While we are still only in May, let’s use UZR/150 (similar to UZR but normalized to 150 games) and overall defense from FanGraphs to give us a better estimate of Mike’s defense compared to last year:
*2016 is omitted due to season ending knee surgery
| Year | UZR/150 | Def |
| 2015 | 2.9 | 5.2 |
| 2017 | -4.6 | -4.4 |
| 2018 | -4.7 | -1.1 |
From 2011-2015, prior to his ACL injury, Moustakas was 7th best in the league in UZR/150. Not much has changed on the defensive spectrum since he returned from knee surgery in 2017. Reading the writing on the wall, it’s looking more and more like he will be making a switch over to first base before his career is over.
Remember though, his defense wasn’t the only thing that scared some teams away from him, it was also his baserunning. Let’s look at Mike Moustakas the baserunner over the past 4 seasons using FanGraphs’ baserunning metric, which takes into account stolen bases, extra bases taken, and times thrown out into runs above and below average.
| Year | BsR |
| 2015 | -5.6 |
| 2016* | -1.1 |
| 2017 | -5.4 |
| 2018 | 0.8 |
*Only played 27 games due to knee surgery
Moustakas has always been a below average baserunner. One month into the 2018 season, Moustakas is now an above average baserunner. If Moustakas can keep this up, he is adding another dimension to his game that he has never really had before, making him an even more frightening offensive player. Speaking of wheels, Moustakas already has a triple to his credit for the 2018 season, something he hasn’t accomplished since 2015. For a player like Moustakas, his improved baserunning really enhances his value.
We are now blessed with Statcast data on just about every move a player makes on the field. With the recent addition of Sprint Speed, which measures exactly what it says it does, we can now see if Moustakas is being a smarter baserunner or if he has gained a step or two now that he is a year removed from surgery. Behold…
| Year | Statcast Sprint Speed (ft/sec) |
| 2017 | 24.0 |
| 2018 | 25.5 |
Just how big of an improvement is this? Mike Moustakas is tied with Matt Olson of the Oakland Athletic’s for the 2nd best improvement in sprint speed in the Majors, trailing only Matt Kemp of the Dodgers. In 2017, Moustakas ranked in the bottom 2 percent of all third basemen in sprint speed. In 2018, Moustakas now ranks in the 24th percentile. It’s not like Moustakas is going to start stealing a ton of bases, but his speed has definitely improved.
A faster, healthier Mike Moustakas will enter the biggest offseason in all of baseball this winter without the label of being a “bat only” corner infielder. While Moustakas hasn’t been any better with the glove thus far, he is making himself more of an offensive asset than ever and will surely have teams courting his services very soon, whether it be the trade deadline this summer or free agency next offseason.
