Royals News: Alex Gordon to retire at the end of the 2020 season

In Royals news, Alex Gordon is retiring when the season comes to an end. Gordon  will go down as one of the greatest Kansas City Royals of all-time.

Fifteen years after he was drafted out of the University of Nebraska, Alex Gordon is hanging up the glove after the 2020 season and will go down as one of the all-time greats in Kansas City Royals history.

The news came from Jeffrey Flanagan of MLB.com and said that the club will be officially announcing it later. Gordon is 36 years old and is clearly not the same player he once was, but has meant a lot to this organization.

Of course we all remember Gordon’s game-tying home run in Game 1 of the 2015 World Series and the moment when he rounded the bases with his finger in the air is an image we’ll all have in our minds forever.

Alex Gordon is playing in his final series as a member of the Kansas City Royals this weekend.

Gordon never played for another team. He’s always stayed true to the team who drafted him and gave this organization everything he had. He initially was drafted as a third baseman, but struggled there and was then sent back to the minor leagues to learn a new position, which was left field.

From there, Gordon was a totally different player and it resulted in him winning 7 Gold Gloves and making it to 3 All-Star games. His career completely turned around from the moment he returned from the minors and he’s undoubtedly been one of the best left fielders in the game during that time.

After the Royals won the World Series in 2015, they inked Gordon to a massive contract worth $72 million that would tie him to the team through 2019. Gordon slogged his way through the first 3 years of that deal, but still played well defensively. He bounced back at the plate in 2019, which led to the Royals bringing him back for 1 more season.

Even though Gordon didn’t have much left in the tank offensively, he still was a veteran presence that this young team needed. It’d be nice to have Gordon stick around and be a part of the front office moving forward because he’s someone that defines what the organization is about.

Alex Gordon is my favorite Royal of all-time and I’ll always be grateful for what he did for this organization through his 15 years in Kansas City.