25 For 25: Royals 1970-1994

After the 2009 season, I went through every franchise in the majors and created a 25 For 25 Team for each one for the seasons 1985-2009. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, a 25 For 25 Team takes a 25 year stretch, picking a single player from each season, and putting together a 25-man roster. To keep it simple, I pick two players each at C/1B/2B/3B/SS, six outfielders, five starting pitchers (at least half of games pitched as starts), and four relievers; for AL teams, I substituted in the DH for a 1B or OF. Player position is determined by whatever position they had the most games played (combined OF games for outfielders). No player can be picked for multiple seasons or multiple eras (this will come into play momentarily). For this new set, I used the following statistics for comparison: Fangraphs' WAR & WPA and Baseball Reference's WAR & waaWL% (a measure of how well a particular player would impact the win percentage of an otherwise .500 team; kind of like bWAR divided by games played). I tried to restrict low PA/IP players, but in very rare instances I may have needed to expand out based on lack of options.

If you're interested, here are links to all 30 teams for the years 1985-2009: ARI ATL BAL BOS CHC CHW CIN CLE COL DET HOU KCR LAA LAD MIA MIL MIN NYM NYY OAK PHI PIT STL SDP SFG SEA TBR TEX TOR WSN

I also did up fully-researched version (with write-ups & pictures) of the Cardinals for 1910-1934 & 1935-1959, as well as a 30 for 30 All-Star Edition for 1981-2010.

Anywho, I have planned out a 10-year update for these teams for the end of this season, from 1995-2019. I have these basically completed, just waiting for the season to get done so I can add in this year's picks and make any necessary adjustments. I have also completed a full set of teams for the years 1970-1994 (sorry, no COL or MIA) to help make sure I have players in the correct era. That is what I am presenting today. I had to make a slight adjustment to my selection criteria: Fangraphs WPA only goes back to 1974, but B-R has a similar stat for those missing seasons (this is due to play-by-play data being incomplete prior to 1974, but the gaps are very minor for most seasons going back to at least the 1940's).

These teams are a thought exercise - which player-seasons do you keep & which do you leave off? Occasionally you have the Cy Young Award winner & the Most Valuable Player in the same year. Sometimes you have a more deserving player, but you need to pick that catcher because your good options are really limited. Sometimes you have a really bad year, but you have to pick somebody. By pushing these out to 1970-1994, I'm also giving you a look at an era of your team's history that you may not be familiar with.

Take a look at this team, let me know what you think. I look forward to your comments.

1970 – Bob Oliver 1B (1.8 fWAR, 2.1 bWAR, 2.20 WPA, .500 waaWL%)

1971 – Cookie Rojas 2B (3.1 fWAR, 3.6 bWAR, 1.60 WPA, .518 waaWL%)

1972 – Lou Piniella OF (3.7 fWAR, 3.5 bWAR, 1.20 WPA, .508 waaWL%)

1973 – Freddie Patek SS (2.6 fWAR, 2.6 bWAR, -1.60 WPA, .503 waaWL%)

1974 – Steve Busby SP (6.4 fWAR, 6.5 bWAR, 2.45 WPA, .601 waaWL%)

1975 – John Mayberry Sr 1B (7.3 fWAR, 7.2 bWAR, 4.71 WPA, .531 waaWL%)

1976 – Hal McRae DH (4.4 fWAR, 4.7 bWAR, 3.38 WPA, .516 waaWL%)

1977 – Al Cowens OF (5.1 fWAR, 5.4 bWAR, 3.95 WPA, .518 waaWL%)

1978 – Amos Otis OF (7.2 fWAR, 7.4 bWAR, 4.55 WPA, .538 waaWL%)

1979 – Darrell Porter C (7.5 fWAR, 7.6 bWAR, 4.30 WPA, .534 waaWL%)

1980 – George Brett 3B (9.1 fWAR, 9.4 bWAR, 6.14 WPA, .566 waaWL%)

1981 – Willie Wilson OF (3.6 fWAR, 4.1 bWAR, 0.76 WPA, .527 waaWL%)

1982 – John Wathan C (2.1 fWAR, 2.1 bWAR, -0.24 WPA, .504 waaWL%)

1983 – Dan Quisenberry RP (2.7 fWAR, 5.5 bWAR, 4.19 WPA, .548 waaWL%)

1984 – Frank White 2B (4.2 fWAR, 4.1 bWAR, -0.16 WPA, .519 waaWL%)

1985 – Charlie Leibrandt SP (4.1 fWAR, 6.6 bWAR, 2.27 WPA, .637 waaWL%)

1986 – Bud Black RP (0.1 fWAR, 2.2 bWAR, 1.26 WPA, .518 waaWL%)

1987 – Kevin Seitzer 3B (5.1 fWAR, 5.5 bWAR, 2.68 WPA, .520 waaWL%)

1988 – Kurt Stillwell SS (2.8 fWAR, 2.7 bWAR, 0.87 WPA, .503 waaWL%)

1989 – Bret Saberhagen SP (7.5 fWAR, 9.7 bWAR, 5.18 WPA, .702 waaWL%)

1990 – Steve Farr RP (1.6 fWAR, 4.8 bWAR, 1.92 WPA, .559 waaWL%)

1991 – Danny Tartabull OF (4.5 fWAR, 4.4 bWAR, 3.75 WPA, .518 waaWL%)

1992 – Jeff Montgomery RP (1.4 fWAR, 3.1 bWAR, 1.23 WPA, .528 waaWL%)

1993 – Kevin Appier SP (6.8 fWAR, 9.3 bWAR, 5.62 WPA, .705 waaWL%)

1994 – David Cone SP (3.8 fWAR, 6.9 bWAR, 3.56 WPA, .728 waaWL%)

C – Darrell Porter (79), John Wathan (82)

1B – Bob Bailey (70), John Mayberry Sr (75)

2B – Cookie Rojas (71), Frank White (84)

3B – George Brett (80), Kevin Seitzer (87)

SS – Freddie Patek (73), Kurt Stillwell (88)

OF – Lou Piniella (72), Al Cowens (77), Amos Otis (78), Willie Wilson (81), Danny Tartabull (91)

DH – Hal McRae (76)

SP – Steve Busby (74), Charlie Leibrandt (85), Bret Saberhagen (89), Kevin Appier (93), David Cone (94)

RP – Dan Quisenberry (83), Bud Black (86), Steve Farr (90), Jeff Montgomery (92)