Kansas City Royals: Ryan Goins a Potential Target

With the Royals wanting to keep the team payroll between $100-$110 million range, they are going to have to find some inexpensive options. With the payroll already close to the desired payroll Dayton Moore has to get creative. Ryan Goins seems to be one of those inexpensive targets.

According to Jon Heyman of Fanrag Sports, the Royals are looking at potentially bringing in Ryan Goins if Alcides Escobar signs with another team. With the current rebuild the Royals are heading towards, and having a significant number of players that are still unknown, the 29-year-old veteran is a little more of a known player.

There are a couple of the reasons for the Royals being interested in Goins. The fact that he will only be in year two of arbitration eligibility, making just $548,200 last year, he would be very inexpensive. For a team that wants to keep expenses down to aid in a rebuild, Goins does make sense for the Royals in that aspect.

Another perk for signing Goins is his versatility. He has spent the last five years as a super-utility infielder for the Toronto Blue Jays. Spending time at second base, third base and shortstop could be a desired ability for the Royals. Especially with not fully knowing who will be the Royals third baseman and shortstop.

Defensively, he has been better than Escobar when playing shortstop. Granted Goins has played 190 games at shortstop versus Escobar’s 1,282 games at shortstop, Goins has a career .987 fielding percentage compared to Escobars .976 fielding percentage. Last year over 87 games Goins posted a .988 fielding percentage compared to Escobar’s .978 fielding percentage over 162 games. It is a smaller sample size, though.

However…

Goins did not make it through arbitration with the Blue Jays for a reason. Offensively, he has struggled. Over his career, he has hit a meager .228/.275/.335 and just .237/.286/.356 last year.

Being an infielder that plays shortstop and second base, stolen bases should be an area of success. Goins seems to be the outlier of that philosophy though. Over his five years, he has just six stolen bases on 11 attempts, last year being a career-high with just three stolen bases on six attempts. That does raise some questions as to why that does not seem to be apart of his game.

Goins has also spent his entire career being a player coming off the bench. Over five years he has played in 448 games, an average of 90 games a year. Last year was a career high in games played at 143 games. Previous to that his career high was 123 games in 2015. Those are his only years playing 100 plus games as well.

Final Thoughts:

With low offensive numbers and seemingly no desire to steal bases, it seems like the addition of Goins would not provide much of an upgrade for the Royals.

Signing Goins only makes sense if the Royals have serious doubt about players they currently have. With a player to fill every hole in the infield, regardless of how successful they will be or have been, Goins does not seem to fit. By coming to Kansas City it would be for an inexpensive veteran who is a low-risk/high-reward type player.

What do you think Royals fans? Should the Royals consider bringing Ryan Goins to Kansas City? Should they utilize that money in another way? Or should they pass and rely on someone in-house? Let us know your thoughts!