KC Royals: Historical roster of greats who briefly played in Kansas City

The Infield

*Denotes a member of the Hall of Fame.

Catcher, Benito Santiago (Royals, 2004)

As I’m sure you’ve no doubt noticed on the first slide, most of the players on this roster fall into one of two categories as far as when he played for a Kansas City team:

• Toward the beginning of his career.
• Toward the end of his career.

Santiago falls into the latter group as he played his penultimate season in Kansas City when he was 39. Despite that, he was only two years removed from his fifth (and final) All-Star appearance.

Between 1987 (when he won Rookie of the Year) and 1992, all while with the Padres, Santiago made four All-Star teams, won four Silver Sluggers, and earned three Gold Gloves. During that time, he popped 85 home runs while driving in 375 runs as he slashed .264/.298/.406.

Later, in his last great season in 2002 with the San Francisco Giants, Santiago slashed .278/.315/.450 as he even received some MVP consideration. In the NLCS that year, he won the MVP as he smashed two home runs and drove in six while posting a .964 OPS against the Cardinals.

With the Royals, he essentially split time with John Buck. Had he enough at-bats to qualify, he would’ve placed third on the team in slugging percentage (.434) behind only Mike Sweeney and Matt Stairs.

That team finished 58-104.

First base, Harmon Killebrew* (Royals, 1975)

The first of six (!) Hall-of-Famers in the lineup, Harmon “Killer” Killebrew played his first 21 seasons with the Washington Senators/Minnesota Twins organization before finishing his awesome career with a franchise in only its seventh year of existence.

Killebrew, then 39, played in 106 games with the Royals, swatting 13 doubles and 14 home runs as he scored 25 runs and drove in 44 RBIs as he slashed .199/.317/.375.

For his career, Killebrew finished with 573 home runs, which now ranks 12th all-time, but at the time ranked fifth only behind Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, and Frank Robinson. Killebrew made 13 All-Star teams, including nine in a row, while he won the 1969 MVP Award while he finished in the top-five in voting another five times.

He led the American League in home runs six times, the majors four times. He also led the American League in walks on four different occasions and in RBI’s three times.

Second base, Jackie Robinson* (Monarchs, 1945)

And here we have the opposite end of the spectrum, a player who started his professional career in Kansas City, with the Monarchs of the Negro American League.

Of course, you know all about Jackie Robinson, as he’s the one who broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball in 1947 with the Brooklyn Dodgers, a year in which Robinson won the Rookie of the Year Award and finished fifth in MVP voting, leading his team to the World Series, where they lost in seven games to the Yankees. (The Dodgers and Robinson would go 1-5 in six World Series, all against the Yankees, finally winning in 1955.)

Yes, a lot of people know that, plus that Robinson would go on to reach the Hall of Fame, despite playing just 10 seasons, but those were 10 great seasons in which he’d accumulate nearly 62 WAR, play in the All-Star Game six times, win the batting title (.349) and MVP in 1949, receive votes for the MVP in eight seasons, and twice lead the league in stolen bases.

But before all that, before he even played with the Montreal Royals*, then the top minor league affiliate of the Dodgers, Robinson briefly played for the storied Kansas City Monarchs. By most accounts, including Baseball-Reference and the SABR biography project, Robinson dominated. According to Rick Swaine of SABR, in his short time with the Monarchs, “Robinson hit well over .300 and showed speed and power...”

*Full circle, eh?

Thankfully, for the betterment of all, it didn’t last.