Kansas City Royals: Best Pitchers of All-Time in Wins Above Replacement

ALL-TIME LEADERS IN WAR FOR PITCHERS – NUMBER 5: DENNIS LEONARD

Royals Pitcher from 1974-1986 (WAR – 26.0)

Dennis Leonard is one of the rare baseball players who spent his entire career as a member of the Kansas City Royals. Of course, when Leonard pitched for the Royals, they were a respectable franchise and at the top of the mountain almost every year.

Leonard’s 26.0 WAR is an indicator of how important he was to the franchise, but the fact that he spent all 12 seasons of his MLB career in Kansas City definitely helped get him into the top five all-time. He was an all-time great.

Dennis Leonard was a second round pick by the Royals in 1972 and as I mentioned earlier, spent his entire career in Royal blue. He had a rough patch to start his major league career in 1974, but after that, he was one of the best there was, finishing fourth for the Cy Young Award in 1977.

Leonard finished his 12-year career in Kansas City with an ERA of 3.70, 1.262 WHIP, 144 wins, and threw 2,187 big league innings. He only pitched in two innings of the 1985 season, but had been a consistently good starter up to that point in his career.