A Healthy Vinnie Pasquantino Could Break Out for the Royals in 2025
Pasquantino has been on breakout watch for a while now. Could this finally be the season we've been waiting for?

After the season the Kansas City Royals put together in 2024, undoubtedly putting their rebuilding stage in the rearview mirror, more eyes will inevitably be on them as great baseball returns to Kauffman Stadium.
As the Royals look for ways to improve their roster as their competitive window opens further, there will also be some existing names on the roster looking to continue to make a better name for themselves, none more than Vinnie Pasquantino.
While the overwhelming majority of the spotlight in Kansas City has deservingly been on Bobby Witt Jr. after he finished as the AL MVP runner-up in 2024, the question of who will lead his supporting cast is more prevalent than ever.
Salvador Perez might have been considered that guy going into 2024, but now that he’s entering his age-35 season, questions about his longevity come to the forefront.
The Royals also sported one of the more lackluster offenses in MLB in 2024, ranking 20th in team wRC+ while being filled with numerous below-average hitters.
This is why the answer to who’s the second in command to Witt Jr. has to be the 27-year-old Pasquantino.
It feels like Pasquantino has been on the verge of a breakout for a while now, and that’s because he has, but injuries have taken a toll on the first baseman since he made his debut in the summer of 2022.
After getting the call to the show on June 27, 2022, Pasquantino put the league on notice, posting a .295/.383/.450 slash line with a 136 wRC+ in 298 plate appearances across 72 games.
Then 2023 came along, with Pasquantino aiming to play his first full season and build on the momentum he made for himself the year prior. However, it all ended before he could really hit his stride after he suffered a torn labrum after playing just 61 games.
Fast forward to 2024, and Pasquantino may not have looked quite like the hitter he was in 2022, but he was making great strides nonetheless, becoming one of the Royals’ top run producers in the heart of their lineup.
Again though, that momentum came to an abrupt halt, as a collision at first base saw Pasquantino break his thumb resulting in him missing the final month of the regular season.
That being said, with what we’ve seen when he’s healthy and the fact he was poised to play a full season if it were not for an errant throw to first base, the stars finally seem to be aligning on a Pasquantino breakout.
Pasquantino Was a Force at the Plate in 2024
Very few hitters have as complete a profile as Pasquantino possesses at the plate, as he’s a multi-faceted hitter.
From contact, to power, to run production, to solid plate discipline, the Pasquatch has it all.
Contact
At first glance, when you see a player hit for a .262 clip, you might think it’s a good mark but not necessarily one that screams “great contact hitter”.
However, the deeper you dive into Pasquantino’s contact numbers, the easier it is to see that he has the makings of an elite hitter.
If we look a zone-contact rates, Pasquantino posted an incredible 94.3% clip in 2024. This was the fifth-highest rate in all of baseball, with only Steven Kwan, Luis Arráez, Nico Hoerner and Mookie Betts posting higher totals.
That’s it!
Because he was so good at making consistent contact on pitches within the strike zone, it led to some pretty impressive quality-of-contact rates.
Last season, Pasquantino posted a 14.6% soft-contact rate, meaning in a league that runs on harder contact nowadays, he was making either medium or hard contact at over an 85% clip.
His soft-contact rate last season was only marginally higher than some elite offensive profiles like Betts (14.1%) and Julio Rodríguez (14.3%) while ranking better than other prolific hitters like Matt Olson (14.9%), José Ramírez (16.2%) and even his lineup mate Witt (14.7%), among numerous others.
This has all led to Pasquantino being somewhat of a data darling when it comes to contact, with favorable expected metrics such as an 80th-percentile xBA, according to Baseball Savant.
Considering he posted a .295 batting average in his rookie season, there’s definitely reason to believe that there is validity behind these expected metrics.
Power
While 2024 looked good for Pasquantino in the contact department, the power side of his game was also strong.
Pasquantino posted a more than respectable 46.5% hard-hit rate, ranking him in the league’s 80th percentile.
His hard-hit rate also indicated that he was returning to the power-hitting form he held in his well-regarded rookie season, in which he posted a 46.9% hard-hit rate.
His exit velos last season were nothing to scoff at either. He posted a 78th percentile average exit velocity of 91.0 mph, which also looked a lot closer to the 91.2 mph average exit velocity he produced in 2022.
If it weren’t for that fluke fractured thumb at the end of the year, Pasquantino was easily on pace to hit 20+ HR, as he ended the year on 19 HR despite missing a month.
Like we discussed in the contact section, the signs are there to think that this type of power is sustainable for Pasquantino moving forward, with a 70th percentile xSLG of .438 to pair next to his actual .446 SLG in 2024.
Run Production
This section will be shorter in comparison to the others about Pasquantino’s offensive profile, but that doesn’t diminish how important it is to his overall game.
Pasquantino was a force to be reckoned with in the upper portion of the Royals lineup in 2024.
His 97 RBI in 2024 placed him in the top 20 of MLB, above notable prolific run producers like Freddie Freeman (89 RBI) and Pete Alonso (88 RBI).
Now I may sound like a broken record here, but if Pasquantino doesn’t miss the final month of the season, he’s in all likelihood a 100+ RBI hitter who likely finishes in the top 10 in RBI at the very least, considering he was sixth when he hit the IL.
Reaching triple-digit RBIs might be an arbitrary threshold, but many will view run producers at that level of output a lot more highly than they view ones below it, especially with where Pasquantino hits in the lineup.
Plate Discipline
To round out Pasquantino’s top-tier offensive profile is his fairly disciplined approach at the plate.
I say “fairly disciplined” because out of all four of his strengths at the plate, this is the facet in which he could stand to improve the most in order to facilitate a true breakout, which I will address toward the end of this piece.
Pasquantino was in the upper echelon of the league’s hitters in both avoiding strikeouts and avoiding whiffs.
Both his K% and whiff% ranked in the 96th percentile of league hitters in 2024.
Again, we’ll discuss improvements that Pasquantino could make to his approach later, but he has a more than suitable foundation to build off here.
Kansas City’s Competitive Window Will Only Aid Pasquantino
After he returned from injury in the postseason, we saw just how vital Pasquantino was to the Royals offense. Their Wild Card series win over the Baltimore Orioles was the perfect example of this, after he hit .286 with an RBI and two walks in the sweep, when both teams looked largely incapable of producing anything at the plate.
Looking at the regular season as well, Pasquantino was instrumental to a Royals offense that beyond him, Witt and Perez, featured just one player with 200+ plate appearances that had a wRC+ above 100.
Name | Plate Appearances | wRC+ |
---|---|---|
Bobby Witt Jr. | 709 | 168 |
Salvador Perez | 652 | 115 |
Vinnie Pasquantino | 554 | 108 |
Michael Massey | 356 | 102 |
Hunter Renfroe | 424 | 92 |
Freddy Fermin | 368 | 91 |
MJ Melendez | 451 | 85 |
Kyle Isbel | 426 | 81 |
Nelson Velázquez | 230 | 76 |
Maikel Garcia | 626 | 69 |
Adam Frazier | 294 | 63 |
Garrett Hampson | 231 | 59 |
The fact he was able to produce 97 RBI in these circumstances is a testament to just how great a hitter he is.
The Royals have already started to improve their lineup this winter, after starting the offseason off with a deal to add some additional top-half reinforcement in Jonathan India.
With more moves likely to come to further bolster this offense, Pasquantino will hope to find himself in more run-producing scenarios next season.
What Can Pasquantino Do To Further Establish Himself?
Injuries have been the biggest setback for Pasquantino when it comes to really breaking out and establishing himself as one of the league’s best, but you can’t always prevent injuries.
Putting injuries aside though, Pasquantino is undoubtedly a key part of this Royals core. Should he continue going through the motions and producing the same outputs he did in 2024, he’ll continue to be a good player.
However, a 108 wRC+ and 1.5 fWAR are indicative of a good hitter, but not necessarily a great one.
So, what exactly is in Pasquantino’s control that he can improve upon moving forward in order to really break out?
Chase Rates and Walk Rates
As I’ve alluded to already, there are aspects of Pasquantino’s approach at the plate that he could certainly improve to unlock some untapped offensive potential.
While Pasquantino avoids whiffing at pitches to an elite degree, he finds himself chasing pitches at a high clip, as his 30.7% chase rate in 2024 ranked in just the 32nd percentile of MLB hitters.
Because he chased so much, his walk rate inevitably suffered, as a 7.2% clip placed him in just the 38th percentile of the league.
If Pasquantino can avoid chasing pitches outside of the zone and lean on his excellent in-zone contact rates and low whiff rates, he’s either going see more pitches in the zone to capitalize on or simply just walk more.
Either way, it will in all likelihood result in more hits or more walks, either of which would raise his OBP and OPS from respectable but more average-looking totals of .315 and .760, respectively.
Defense
Now defense is something that is less integral to a first baseman in comparison to chasing fewer pitches and walking more.
However, based on some of the defense metrics Pasquantino has posted in the past, it’s feasible to think that improvement is within the realm of possibility.
In 2024, he showcased solid enough range at first, posting a Fielding Run Value of +2, five better than his total in 2023, according to Baseball Savant. His 3 OAA placed him in the 81st percentile in range.
However, his defensive runs saved (DRS) totals looked a little less favorable last season in comparison. In 2024, Pasquantino only managed to post -3 DRS.
His above-average range leads me to believe that achieving more average DRS totals is possible. This would only stand to boost his value as a first baseman.
Health issues will always be a hindrance to any player from a defensive standpoint, regardless of position. In 2024, we saw Pasquantino come as close as he’s come in his career to posting a full season in the big leagues, so perhaps if he continues to trend upward in games played and remains on the field, the defense could trend upwards as well.
Concluding Thoughts
It’s clear to see that Pasquantino is not only a capable hitter but has laid the groundwork to be one the better hitters in MLB, after already sitting amongst them in several categories last season.
His ability to make great contact paired with 20+ HR and 100+ RBI potential along with low strikeout rates gives him all the makings of a textbook breakout candidate.
So, if he can stay healthy, cut down the chase rates, find more ways to walk and continue to develop his defensive game, there’s no reason to think he can’t be an All-Star caliber player for years to come.
The time looks to be now for Pasquantino, so buckle up, baseball fans, because a star might be budding before our very eyes.