‘We want to win’: Why Hunter Dozier has played anywhere the Royals have needed him
For the most part, what you see is what you get Kansas City Royals third baseman Hunter Dozier.
The clean-cut, mild-mannered 29-year-old Texan has the gentle disposition as well as a wholesome and honest nature of the Captain America character depicted in the Marvel movies. Except the Hollywood version — Chris Evans — doesn’t package it all in a 6-foot-4, 220-pound body made for mashing baseballs.
Yet there’s also a slight edge to Dozier beneath the surface. It comes out in brief moments, such as earlier this month when he offered an unsolicited promise that the Royals were on the verge of doing “a lot of winning.”
There’s a reason a scout once said Dozier was the type of player you could build a team around. There’s a driving force behind his willingness to give up his position in order to make room for someone else.
It all rises from a yearning to win.
“I watch the playoffs every year, and I want to be in it,” Dozier said in an interview with The Star in Arizona early in spring training. “I want to know what that feels like. It just looks so much fun. That’s why you play the game, to try to win a World Series. That’s all of our goal right now. We want to get back to the postseason. We want to win.”
Since making it to the majors, Dozier has only known the Royals’ recent dearth of winning. Their playoff drought dates back to 2016, the season Dozier got his first small taste of the big leagues.
He played in the playoffs in the minors, and he was even part of a championship team. That feeling stuck with him.
“My first year in pro ball when I was in Idaho Falls, we won the championship and that was just short-season pro ball,” Dozier said. “But it was awesome.”
It makes us better
Dozier played each of the corner infield and outfield positions in the minors, but he got his chance to play third base full-time once the Royals traded Mike Moustakas in 2018.
Every day in 2018 and 2019, Dozier put in time with then-coaches Dale Sveum and Mike Jirschele on footwork, range, soft hands and making throws.
Dozier enjoyed a career offensive year in 2019, the same season he got his first shot as the everyday third baseman. That production included a .279/.348/.522 slash line along with 26 homers, 84 RBIs and 75 runs scored in 139 games.
Then before last season, he willingly gave up his position to pave the way for the free-agent acquisition of Maikel Franco because he thought it might help the Royals win.
“Honestly, I want what’s best for the team,” Dozier said. “I worked my butt off over at third. I felt like I was in a really good spot. So when they told me they were bringing Franco in — Franco is a heck of a player.
“He’s a really good bat. I wasn’t by any means disappointed at all. I was very excited. I was excited for the opportunity to go to the outfield too because I know bringing Franco in was going to make our team better. So it wasn’t hard at all.”
Pester him long enough with similar questions, and Dozier eventually admits that he still feels the most comfortable at third base. If there’s one position that feels like “home,” it’s third.
And yes, if he’d stayed at that position then he’d probably be even better there now.
He’s too honest to skirt around those facts. However, he’s also quick to point out that none of that particularly matters to him.
“The biggest goal is to win, and I want to win,” Dozier said. “If they believe bringing in a certain guy is going to help us out and that moves me off my position at the time, I’m fine with that. That gives them the opportunity to go sign the best guy available because they know I can bounce around.”
Not taken for granted
Royals manager Mike Matheny inherited the multi-positional Dozier when he took over the helm after the 2019 season.
As impressed as Matheny has been by Dozier’s physical ability, Dozier’s disposition has impressed Matheny more.
“It’s rare, and it’s something that we can’t take for granted because that isn’t commonplace with every player,” Matheny said. “When you find guys of high talent and have that high character that I will do what you need me to do — I think part of it is how he’s wired.”
The Royals certainly do make a conscious effort to embrace and celebrate players’ versatility and their willingness to be flexible. All-Star infielder/outfielder Whit Merrifield is a perfect example, having grown into one of the vocal leaders and faces of the team.
But Dozier’s mentality clearly isn’t something he recently adopted.
“That’s just who he is,” Matheny said.
Last year, Matheny tried his best to be disarming and get Dozier to let his guard down about where he felt most comfortable on the diamond.
“OK, you’re not talking to the manager,” Matheny recalled telling him. “Talk to me about what it is that Hunter Dozier when it’s just you and Amanda and you’re talking about positions on the field, what is that you would love to see? Where is it you would like to be?”
Dozier responded that he wants to play wherever Matheny wants him to play. Dozier insisted he liked the challenge of moving around and having to be versatile.
“He looked at me in a way that I believed him,” Matheny said.
The Royals committed to Dozier this spring with a four-year contract extension with a fifth-year option that will guarantee Dozier at least $25 million.
He’s now under contract longer than any other member of their major-league roster, including Salvador Perez and Merrifield. In effect, the deal solidified Dozier as a cornerstone of the current team.
“I’m one of Hunter’s biggest fans,” Royals second baseman Nicky Lopez said. “It’s easy to root for a guy who is that special a person too. It’s so well deserved. I’m super happy for him and his family.
“I think the first time I played with Hunter was in High-A when he was rehabbing, and he was as genuine as it gets. To you see a guy rewarded with that much money, it’s definitely well deserved and he earned it. It’s easy to root for guys like that.”
A guy to build around
The sentiment Lopez expressed is the exact type of character trait Mitch Thompson became enamored with when he first went to watch Dozier at Stephen F. Austin State University in Texas. Thompson, now the head coach at McLennan Community College in Waco, Texas, scouted for the Royals in 2013.
Dozier won the Southland Conference player of the year award in 2013 and was a finalist for the Brooks Wallace Award as the best shortstop in college baseball. His last season, he batted .396 with 17 home runs, 25 doubles, a .755 slugging percentage and 52 RBIs in 55 games.
Dozier’s talent, size, strength and bat speed jumped out at Thompson. But that wasn’t what moved Dozier to the top of Thompson’s preference list as the Royals’ area scout for that territory.
“There’s no question with Hunter Dozier that his makeup was off the chart,” Thompson said. “I know that when I wrote my scouting report on him, obviously you put good numbers on his physical tools. But the thing I know that I hammered in that report is that this guy’s makeup is just off the chart. He is a first-class human being.
“You can build around those guys. Those guys influence every aspect of the game and every aspect of your team. There was no question.”
The Royals selected Dozier eighth overall in the 2013 MLB Draft.
There was a low-maintenance and low-ego quality that Thompson identified in Dozier. It was part of why teammates and coaches “loved him.”
That mixture reminded Thompson, who coached at Baylor University prior to spending that year as a scout for the Royals, of a former Nebraska player he’d coached against in the Big 12 in the early 2000s: Alex Gordon.
“Those are the guys that are playing the game right every day,” Thompson said. “Yeah, they’re All-Americans. Yeah, Hunter Dozier was a first-round draft pick. But that guy wasn’t the guy who was beating his chest saying look at me.
“That guy was the guy sliding into second base stretching a single into a double, playing as hard as he could every time you saw him play. … That’s what makes him special. He plays very confidently, but he doesn’t show any arrogance. He’s not above the team.”
That’s why you play
After having moved to the outfield last season to accommodate Franco, Dozier finished the year playing a lot of first base.
It seemed almost assured Dozier would enter the 2021 season set to start at a third position in as many years.
Well, until the Royals non-tendered Franco and signed switch-hitting veteran first baseman Carlos Santana.
True to form, Dozier once again swapped out gloves and moved to another position. This time, he bumped back to third base.
“When we bring in a guy like Santana, everyone is pumped up,” Dozier said. “He’s a great guy, a great teammate. He’s going to help us a lot. And he’s going to help each one of us be a better baseball player for sure. So when I saw that and I got the call that I would probably be coming to third, I was excited.
“Hats off to Dayton (Moore) and Mr. Sherman, our front office, for making moves this offseason when a lot of people weren’t.”
The Royals retooled their lineup with offseason additions Andrew Benintendi and Michael A. Taylor as well as Santana. They also added to the pitching staff with starter Mike Minor, reliever Wade Davis and re-signed reliever Greg Holland.
All of those moves were aimed at making the postseason.
“Playoff anything is more fun to watch, more fun to play in,” Dozier said. “The stakes are higher. Adrenaline is going. Fans are even louder. Every pitch is more important. That’s why you play the whole season, just to get to that point.”
After back-to-back 100-loss seasons and an sub-.500 record in last year’s pandemic-shortened season, winning trumps any and all other considerations for Dozier.
The playoffs represent a hallowed level of play he hasn’t experienced, and he’s longing for that feeling.
“All I know is we want to get there,” Dozier said. “We want to get back. We want to make a run at it.”
And it’s a safe assumption that he doesn’t care what position he’s playing when that happens.
“No,” Dozier said. “I do not care.”
