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Whit Merrifield is still good, but he shouldn’t lead off anymore

In the young 2022 season, the Kansas City Royals have struggled to score runs. You don’t have to look hard to find out why: the team as a whole has the third-worst OPS (on base plus slugging percentage) in baseball. They also have the second-worst walk rate in baseball and the second-worst ISO (isolated slugging percentage) in baseball.

This is—how do you put it—bad, it’s bad. Of course, we’re eight games into the year. A lot of weird things can happen in a short stretch of games. For instance, the 2005 Royals team was the worst squad in franchise history en route to a whopping 106 losses, and they went 7-2 over a nine-game stretch in June.