Slugger Franmil Reyes elects free agency following DFA

The Royals announced Thursday that outfielder/designated hitter Franmil Reyes went unclaimed on outright waivers following his DFA earlier this week. He’s rejected an outright assignment from the team in favor of free agency. He can now sign with any club.

Reyes, 27, signed a minor league deal with the Royals back in February and made the team’s Opening Day roster. He slugged a pair of homers early in the season but fell into a swoon that saw him fail to reach base in 20 straight plate appearances. The Royals optioned him to Triple-A at that point, with Reyes toting an ugly .186/.231/.288 batting line and a 36.9% strikeout rate.

That marks a continuation of a downturn that began in 2022, when Reyes hit just .213/.254/.350 with a 37.1% strikeout rate in Cleveland before being placed on waivers and claimed by the Cubs. He improved slightly in Chicago, slashing .234/.301/.389, but it wasn’t enough for the Cubs to keep him the roster. He was outrighted off the 40-man, elected free agency and eventually signed this deal with Kansas City.

Prior to that ugly 2022 campaign, the 6-foot-5 Reyes was a feared middle-of-the-order hitter. He’s turned in a pair of 30-homer campaigns in his career, including a career-high 37 big flies in 2019. From 2018-21, he took 1,540 plate appearances and batted .260/.325/.503 with 92 home runs between San Diego and Cleveland. Strikeouts were an issue even then, as he fanned in 29.5% of his plate appearances, but he had enough power and drew enough walks (9%) that he was still a well-regarded offensive player (19% better than league-average, by measure of wRC+).

Reyes’ struggles in 2022-23 figure to make it tough for him to land a big league deal that’d place him right back on a 26-man roster, but a team searching for some right-handed power could certainly take a flier on a minor league pact and hope to get Reyes trending back toward that 2018-21 form.