The Royals went into 2026 believing Isaac Collins could be the kind of left field addition that changes a lineup. Instead, the trade with the Brewers ended up looking thin on both sides, and Collins never delivered the impact bat Kansas City was chasing.
Acquired in the deal that sent Angel Zerpa to Milwaukee, Collins was supposed to bring offense to the outfield, while Nick Mears gave the Brewers a bullpen arm. Zerpa wound up on the 60-day IL, and Collins settled into a frustrating season at the plate, finishing with a .213/.320/.321 line, a .641 OPS and an 83 wRC+.
On paper, Collins did some of the things the Royals wanted. He posted an 80.5% contact rate and drew walks at a 12.3% clip, which fit his reputation as a disciplined hitter with a good approach. But the lack of power was always going to put pressure on the rest of the profile, and in 2026, that weakness showed up everywhere.
Collins is not a player built to pile up home runs - he has only 15 in his career - so his value depends on singles, doubles and enough quality contact to keep the line moving. This season, the batted-ball results just weren’t there. He put up a 39.3% hard-hit rate, an 88.1 mph average exit velocity and a 5.2% barrel rate, numbers that lined up with what he has done before, but not with the kind of production the Royals needed.
The decline showed up in the balls in play. Collins’ BABIP fell to .276, a 50-point drop from 2025, and a big reason was the dip in line drives. He produced line drives on 16.5% of his balls in play this year after sitting at 24.6% last season.
That mattered because line drives are where Collins does his best work. In 2026, he somehow posted a 415 wRC+ on frozen ropes, but his next-best batted-ball result came on bunts, where he was at 85.
The bigger issue was what happened on fly balls. In 2025, he had some success there, with a 110 wRC+ and a .383 ISO.
In 2026, those numbers cratered to 50 and .219.
His swing decisions also drifted in the wrong direction. Collins chased more pitches outside the zone, swinging at 21.9% of them, while swinging less often at pitches in the zone, down to 58.4%.
That combination is a problem for any hitter, and it created more takes on strikes as well. He was called out on strikes 19.6% of the time.
Even with his strong in-zone contact rate of 90.3%, the quality of those swings wasn’t matching the contact skills. His swing/take profile reflected that struggle, with negative values in both the heart and shadow of the strike zone, at -19 and -18. The heart-zone damage was driven mostly by -12 take runs, while in the shadow, the biggest hit came from -19 swing runs, offset only slightly by +1 in take runs.
The result was a hitter whose best trait was patience, but whose overall profile looked limited. In the outfield, he became something of a low-power, high-contact, good-walk-rate bat - basically Johnathan India 2.0 in the outfield, as the source put it.
Defensively, Collins brought one clear strength: the arm. He piled up 11 outfield assists, tied for third in the league.
But the rest of his defensive value was more uneven in the bigger outfield at Kauffman. He finished with -2 OAA, 0 FRV and 4 DRS.
The DRS total was a clear step up from 2025, but his OAA fell sharply and his FRV dipped as well.
The range issue was the real concern. His FRV split showed a 2 in arm value and -2 in range, and that lack of ground coverage hurt him in Kansas City’s outfield dimensions.
So after one season, the Royals are left with a player who did not meet expectations in left field. Collins still has one more year before arbitration eligibility, and he retains all of his options, which gives Kansas City flexibility.
There is a path where he starts 2027 in the minors to get his bat back on track. There is also a path where he uses Spring Training to win the left field job outright.
With a crowded outfield picture for 2027, nothing is guaranteed.
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