KC Royals: 3 big club questions, 3 answers

Is there any chance the KC Royals will pursue outfielder Wil Myers?

If there is, there shouldn't be. Simply put, another outfielder, especially one who's 32 and hitting .189 in his 11th major league season and who Cincinnati DFA'd Tuesday, isn't a commodity the Royals need.

Myers just won't add sufficient value to a Kansas City team steeped with talented young outfielders, so claiming Myers on waivers, which no club had done when this story went live on Kings of Kauffman, would be pointless.

Yes, the Royals considered Myers a major league star of the future when they took him in the third round of the 2009 amateur draft, and after he hit .315 with 14 homers in A-ball in 2019 and homered 37 times and batted .314 two years later in a season split between Double-A and Triple-A, he seemed ready to become that star.

But Kansas City, on the verge of contention after so many years of losing, needed pitching badly and used Myers to get it. The Royals included him in the package of players they shipped to Tampa Bay for James Shields and Wade Davis after the 2012 campaign. One of the finest trades in Royals' history, the deal helped the club get to the World Series in 2014 and win it in 2015.

Myers went on to become a star of sorts, but not a superstar. He hit 28 homers for San Diego in 2016 and 30 for them the following year, but has averaged better than .261 only twice—.293 in his 88-game 2013 rookie season, and .288 in 55 games in 2020. His career average is .252.

No, Myers' is not a body of work that justifies taking playing time from hot KC prospects Dairon Blanco, Samad Taylor, MJ Melendez, Drew Waters, Edward Olivares, or Kyle Isbel when he returns from the Injured List. It's time to let them play and see what they can do.