Kansas City Royals extend center fielder Michael A. Taylor’s contract through 2023
Understated and hyper-athletic center fielder Michael A. Taylor will anchor the outfield defense for the Kansas City Royals for another couple of seasons after the Royals announced Wednesday that they’ve signed Taylor to a two-year contract extension.
The extension will keep Taylor, a leading candidate for an American League Gold Glove award, in Kansas City through the 2023 season. The deal will pay him $4.5 million in 2022 and another $4.5 million in 2023, plus each year he could earn an additional $250,000 in performance bonuses, according to a source with knowledge of the contract.
Taylor, 30, signed a one-year deal with KC last offseason as a free agent after 11 years in the Washington Nationals organization, including seven seasons in the majors.
He could have hit the free-agent market this winter, but instead decided to sign the extension in the final week of the season.
“For me, it’s just about being in the right place,” Taylor said. “Honestly, early on in spring training I felt like this was the right place for me. I showed up Day 1 and just felt like I was at home. Testing the waters to see what’s out there when I already know where I want to be, it just didn’t make sense.”
He has 12 home runs and 14 stolen bases in 137 games this year, and is one game shy of matching his career high for games played, which he set with the Nationals in 2015.
He was batting .244 (.298 on-base percentage) entering Wednesday’s game against the Cleveland Indians at Kauffman Stadium, but his 52 RBIs are his most since he recorded 53 in 2017 and he leads baseball with 21 defensive runs saved, according to FanGraphs.
His 14 outs above average are tied for the major-league lead among outfielders. He leads all center fielders with a career-high 11 outfield assists, the most by a Royal since Melky Cabrera had 13 in 2011.
“From a manager’s standpoint, I witnessed one of the best-played defensive center fields I think I’ve ever seen,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said.
“I’d heard so much about the demands of the outfield here in general and specifically center field and how few guys can handle the grind of Kauffman for a complete season. Watching Michael patrol center field here was artwork.”
Matheny, who had been a proponent of Taylor’s signing this past offseason after having managed against him in the National League in the past, said the defense alone provided enough reason for the Royals to want to keep Taylor in the fold.
Matheny added that the offensive strides made this season, production and potential only bolstered the case for keeping Taylor as the everyday center fielder.
Taylor slashed .272/.327/.391 in August (26 games).
Taylor rejoined the team in Kansas City before Tuesday night’s series opener against Cleveland. The Royals had placed him on the bereavement list Sept. 24.
Earlier this month, he’d been away from the team while on the family medical emergency list.
The Royals center field position has been a revolving door since the departure of star center fielder Lorenzo Cain following the 2017 seasons.
The group of players to log 20 games or more in center field in one season since the start of the 2018 season consisted of Brian Goodwin (25 in 2018), Whit Merrifield (30 in 2018, 23 in 2020), Abraham Almonte (35 in 2018), Billy Hamilton (90 in 2019), Bubba Starling (36 in 2019, 29 in 2020) and Brett Phillips (23 in 2018, 23 in 2019).
Royals president of baseball operations Dayton Moore pointed to Taylor’s character, work ethic, his power to all fields, ability to hit line drives and steal bases and a “strong belief that he’s going to continue to even get better” as reasons the club committed to Taylor for multiple seasons.
“We cannot underestimate the importance of an elite talent like Michael A. playing center field in this ballpark,” Moore said. “When you have somebody with his ability roaming the ground here at Kauffman Stadium combined with a young pitching staff, who we expect to throw a lot more strikes going forward, you’ve got to have somebody who can catch the ball. Michael really sets the tone defensively for us.”
This story was originally published September 29, 2021 at 3:39 PM.
