Isaac Collins arrived in Kansas City with the kind of hope that can make a quiet offseason feel louder. The Royals needed offense from the outfield, so they dealt for the Brewers outfielder and reliever Nick Mears in exchange for Angel Zerpa. Halfway through 2026, though, Collins has not given them the kind of impact they were counting on.
The numbers tell the story fast. Collins is hitting .230/.339/.323 with a .663 OPS, a step down from his .263/.368/.411 line and .779 OPS in 2025.
His wRC+ has dropped to 90 from 122 last season, and his fWAR sits at -0.2. The profile, at least on paper, does not look dramatically different.
The production just is.
A lot of Collins’ underlying traits are close to what they were a year ago. His Savant percentiles are very similar to 2025, with the clearest decline coming in LA sweet-spot% and a rise in squared-up%.
His bat-tracking data does not offer an easy fix, either. He is squaring the ball up better and his bat speed is up, and there is not a major split between his numbers as a lefty or a righty.
His ideal attack angle rate is 37.0%, but that is not far off his 2025 mark.
The real issue shows up in how different pitches are treating him. Collins has not handled fastballs especially well across his two seasons, and the biggest problem is the four-seamer.
He was -2 against 4-seam fastballs last year and -3 this year, and he has hit around .236 on them with roughly a .310 slugging percentage across 2025 and 2026. Sinkers have been less of a problem, with Collins at -3 against them in 2025 and 0 this season, while hitting .286 and slugging around .434 on sinkers.
The cutter was a major strength last year and a much smaller one now. Collins posted a run value of 6 against cut fastballs in 2025, then dropped to 0 in 2026. He hit .579 and slugged 1.000 on cutters last season, but this year those numbers have fallen to .250 and .313.
He has had some success against sliders and sweepers, with run values of 2 and 3, respectively. Curveballs have been a different story.
Collins is just .083 with an .083 slugging percentage against them this year, and changeups have also given him trouble at .143 with a .171 slugging mark. Those are both down from last season, but the curveball drop is especially sharp after he slugged .552 against them in 2025.
The splits help explain a lot, too. Collins has been much better at home, where he owns a 118 wRC+ and a .792 OPS.
On the road, he has a 60 wRC+ and a .538 OPS. Against righties, he is at a league-average 101 wRC+, helped by a 15.9% walk rate.
Against lefties, he is down to a 66 wRC+ and a .598 OPS. His slash line against right-handers is .235/.367/.327, while against left-handers it is .220/.281/.317.
There is at least some upward movement as the season has gone on. Collins opened with an 84 wRC+, improved to 90 in May, and then reached 94 in June. He is hitting .251 in June, nearly 40 points better than his first two months.
Luck does not appear to be the culprit. Collins’ .302 BABIP is 20 points below last season, but it is not the kind of number that screams bad fortune.
The bigger problem is that he has lost power. His ISO is down to .094 from .149 in 2025, and he has only 16 extra-base hits - 13 doubles and three home runs.
For a 5'8 188 lb outfielder, power was never going to be the selling point, but the drop still matters.
The roughest part of the season has come with the glove. In left field, Collins has been a mess at Kauffman so far, with -6 DRS, -4 OAA and -5 FRV. That is a steep fall from 2025, when he was a serviceable to slightly above average left fielder at -1 DRS, 5 OAA and 2 FRV.
The expectations around Collins were always tied to the breakout he showed as a rookie, even if his long-term ceiling was never sky-high. Michael Baumann of Fangraphs summed him up this way: "Collins is elite in one aspect of hitting: strike zone judgment.
I don’t know if he’s even good at any other part of the offensive game. But he’s been average enough everywhere else to make his one standout skill, well, stand out."
That’s the tension with Collins. He gets on base, and when the rest of the bat is close to average, that skill can carry real value.
Right now, though, the Royals are asking that on-base ability to do a lot of the heavy lifting. If Collins can settle back closer to his 2025 form, the season might still end with Kansas City having something worth building on through 2031.
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