4 free agent former KC Royals the club shouldn't pursue

The Royals shouldn't consider bringing back Adalberto Mondesi

Kansas City is a franchise unafraid of reuniting with some of its former stars and giving second chances to ex-players who weren't stars. But when it comes to Mondesi, the club must resist any temptation it might have to make him a Royal again.

The case against a Mondesi reunion isn't hard to make; it borders, in fact, on open and shut.

He simply gets hurt too often; staying on the field is a challenge he hasn't overcome. Yes, he did play all but one game in 2020, but that was the 60-contest pandemic season, the brevity of which disqualifies it as a reliable measure of Mondesi's durability.

The better Mondesi metric is, of course, his unfortunate, frustratingly long injury history, a litany of ailments capped by two oblique strains and a hamstring injury in 2021, and a torn ACL that ended his 2022 season in April. Only once has he played 100 games or more (102 in 2019), and he's otherwise reached 75 only once (2018). The Royals finally gave in to all the injuries and traded him (and minor leaguer Angel Pierre) to Boston for Josh Taylor early this year.

Some might suggest Mondesi is a risk worth taking. They'll say, accurately, that he can be magnificent when he's not hurt. The hard truth, though, is that Mondesi is a risk the Ryals have taken before but the return, while occasionally stellar, hasn't been sustainable.

And then there's what happened, or more accurately didn't happen, after Mondesi joined the Red Sox. He didn't play for them. Not at all. Instead, he spent the season trying to recover from his ACL tear and the surgery it occasioned.

Little has been heard of Mondesi since the campaign ended. Will he play again? As good as Mondesi can be, Kansas City shouldn't be the place that question is answered.

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