Kansas City Royals: Mike Moustakas On Pace To Break Home Run Record

The Kansas City Royals have the lowest franchise record for home runs in a season in Major League Baseball. Mike Moustakas could change that.

In 1985, Steve Balboni set the record for home runs for the Kansas City Royals at 36. The Royals are the only franchise in the Majors without a 40-home run season.

Mike Moustakas is on pace to shatter that long-standing mark, but he may not be with the club long enough to accomplish the feat.

Through June 13th, the Royals have 99 games remaining. Moustakas has 17 homers in the 57 games he’s played out of 63. If he played in all of the games left on the schedule and maintained that pace for the entire season, he would hit 44.

You can safely project that Moustakas won’t play every remaining game. If he plays in 57 of the next 63 games and keeps hitting dingers at his current rate, he will sit at 34 home runs with 36 games left in the season. The record is definitely in his sites!

…if he could break Balboni’s old season record, it would mean the world to this franchise and its fans.

Now, that is a whole lot of ifs, which brings us to the biggest if of them all – the moose in the room, if you will.

There is a chance Moustakas won’t finish the season in Kansas City. No one wants to think about that but it is a real possibility.

The Royals are 28-34, the third-worst record in the American League. The good news is they are only five games out of first in the AL Central. A strong run over the next few weeks, combined with continued mediocre play by other teams in the Central, and the Royals could be in the hunt once again.

The bad news is the Royals are one more bad streak from becoming irrelevant. If the Royals falter, or a couple of the other AL Central teams get red hot and start pulling away, the Royals are certainly going to become sellers.

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Mike Moustakas may be one of the first to go. A few weeks ago, Brad Berreman of FanSided.com included Moustakas as a third baseman the Boston Red Sox should target if things continue to go poorly with Pablo Sandoval. Things have not improved on that front so the Red Sox should have Moustakas at the top of their wishlist as a rental for the rest of the year.

Even though Moustakas is only signed through this season, the money owed him for the rest of the year is not a relatively high amount. According to Spotrac.com, Moustakas will earn $8.7 million this year. By the time the Royals would consider trading him, at least half the season will be gone. If a club wanted to acquire him, they would owe around $4 million, which isn’t steep.

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Moustakas is hitting .275 this season, which would be the second highest Batting Average of his career is he can maintain it. He is Slugging .554, by far the highest mark of his career in that category.

The best case scenario would be for the Royals to fight their way back into the AL Central race between now and the All-Star break. It would pump of fans once again, and it would end the trade talk.

Fans understand this is the last year with this core group of players and they would love to see one more exciting sprint toward the postseason and another championship. If you add in a possible franchise home run race, that would just be icing on the cake.

If you add in a possible franchise home run race, that would just be icing on the cake.

Moustakas’ power binge has moved him up to 14th on the team’s all-time home run list and if he could break Balboni’s old season record, it would mean the world to this franchise and its fans. If he can help bring another World Series Championship to Kansas City, that would be something special. He would solidify his place as an icon in franchise history!

Let’s hope he gets the chance to break that record.