2024 Season in Review: Paul DeJong
Paul, we hardly De-knew you.
Paul DeJong has had a whirlwind of the past two seasons.
He began 2023 with the team that drafted and developed him, the St. Louis Cardinals, before playing for two more organizations, the Toronto Blue Jays and San Francisco Giants. For 2024, he began with the Chicago White Sox before ending it with the Royals.
In that timeframe, among those teams, he performed best (by bWAR) for the Royals, despite appearing in only 37 games.
DeJong appeared primarily at third base for the Royals after coming over from the White Sox. In his short time with the Royals, he slashed .222/.277/.417 for an OPS of .694. Despite these numbers being lower than he posted for the Pale Hose over a larger period of time, he was still worth 0.7 bWAR in Kansas City compared to just 0.2 bWAR in Chicago.
It was the first time since 2022 where DeJong finished the entire season with a positive Win Above Replacement.
Paul DeJong blasts his first homer as a Royal! pic.twitter.com/nTRq25NvlR
— Kansas City Royals (@Royals) August 4, 2024
When he first came to the Royals, he started hot. At the time of arrival, on July 30th, he was slashing .228/.275/.429 for a .707 OPS. Nearly a month later, after playing on August 27th, he was at his season’s peak: .239/.290/.458.748.
Overall in August, he raked, collecting 18 hits in 68 at-bats (.265 average) with three doubles and six home runs (.574 total slugging) while driving in 14 runs and scoring a dozen times. For the month, his OPS came in at .902.
But September seemed to sap DeJong of what he had left. As you can tell by his season-ending numbers, he completely fell off the map, slashing a putrid .135/.154/.135 for a .289 OPS. He didn’t collect a single extra-base hit while striking out in nearly 38% of his at-bats while walking just a single time.
DeJong came to the Royals at the trade deadline in a flurry of moves designed to help rising Royals get through the dog days of August and September.
He half-succeeded.
Season Grade (for Royals): C