A look back at the 2003 Royals

The Royals BELIEVED and made an unexpected run.

The Royals were the laughingstock of baseball in the late 90s and early 2000s, but one oasis in that cesspool of bad baseball was the 2003 Royals. It was a season of stupefying wins, an amazing season from an emerging star player, unwavering optimism from the skipper, and donuts, so many donuts (Krispy Kreme had a promotion where they gave away a dozen donuts to any fan that attended a game where the Royals had 12 hits or more - that happened 27 times that summer!).

The 2003 Royals

Record: 83-79, 3rd in the Central Division, 7 games back

Runs scored: 836 (4th out of 14 teams)

Runs allowed: 867 (12th)

General Manager: Allard Baird

Manager: Tony Peña

Attendance: 1,779,895; 22,249 per-game (22nd out of 30 teams)

Say hello to: Brian Anderson, D.J. Carrasco, Curtis Leskanic, Jose Lima, Graeme Lloyd, Albie Lopez, Desi Relaford, Rondell White

Say goodbye to: Luis Alicea, Cory Bailey, Paul Byrd, Chad Durbin, Roberto Hernandez, Chuck Knoblauch, Neifi Perez, Jeff Suppan, Mark Quinn

All-Stars: Mike MacDougal, Mike Sweeney

Team payroll: $40,518,000 (29th out of 30 teams)

Highest-paid player: Mike Sweeney, $11,000,000

Rookies: Angel Berroa, D.J. Carrasco, Jimmy Gobble, Ken Harvey, Mike MacDougal, Kyle Snyder

Top prospect: Zack Greinke was ranked the #54 prospect in the game by Baseball America. The 19-year-old dominated High-A with a 1.14 ERA in 14 starts before getting moved up to Double-A Wichita and holding his own. Overall he went 15-4 with a 1.93 ERA and just 18 walks in 23 starts.

2003 draft: Chris Lubanski (5th overall), Mitch Maier (1st round), Shane Costa (2nd), Ryan Braun (6th), Mike Aviles (7th), Dusty Hughes (11th), Irving Falu (21st)

What went right: The team got off to a hot start that lasted most of the summer. Carlos Beltrán had a superstar season, supplemented with five other league-average or better hitters for the fourth-best offense in the American League.

What went wrong: The Royals had the worst bullpen ERA in baseball at 5.57 and the pitching staff overall had a 5.03 ERA with the second-worst strikeout rate. They led the American League with 29 blown saves and allowed 49 percent of inherited runners to score, by far and away the highest percentage in baseball.

The Royals had been spinning their wheels since the death of founder Ewing Kauffman in 1993, and by the time David Glass bought the team in 2000, they were a perennial cellar-dweller. In 2002, the Royals fired dour manager Tony Muser and replaced him with the perpetually upbeat Tony Peña, but the team still lost 100 games for the first time in club history.

Glass sought to cut the payroll from a franchise record $47 million to around $37 million. But that was complicated by a new long-term deal with All-Star slugger Mike Sweeney that paid him $55 million over five years, although he had an opt out if the Royals did not have a winning record in the first two years. Other hitting stars like Carlos Beltrán, Raúl Ibañez, and Joe Randa also warranted long-term deals, and fans wanted to bring back free agent starting pitcher Paul Byrd, who won a surprising 17 games for the Royals in 2022 and was willing to return.

Byrd left for the Braves on a two-year, $10 million, and starting pitcher Jeff Suppan departed with a $1 million deal from the Pirates, leaving the Royals with a misfit collection of unproven rookies and journeymen in their rotation. Darrell May - a lefty who had gone to Japan and returned stateside with mixed results - was the most experienced. Jeremy Affeldt showed promise but had perpetual blister and injury issues. Chris George was a former top prospect that hadn’t panned out. Runelvys Hernández and Miguel Ascensio were both coming off their rookie seasons. The pitchers were so non-descript, Peña flipped a coin to determine Hernández would be his Opening Day starter.

There was more talent in the lineup, if ownership would keep them. Having already traded away Johnny Damon and Jermaine Dye in recent seasons, the team looked to move other hitters to save money. They shopped Randa around and reportedly had a deal to send Beltrán to the Rangers until the centerfielder strained his oblique, causing him to miss the start of the season. Ultimately both would stay, and combined with Sweeney and Ibañez, gave the Royals a formidable heart of the order. There were high hopes for rookie shortstop Angel Berroa, the centerpiece of the Damon deal with Oakland. Rookie Ken Harvey had hit .350 in the minors in 2001, and destroyed the Arizona Fall League the previous season.

The Royals had the best record in spring training in Arizona, and had a crisp 3-0 win over the White Sox on Opening Day, fueling some optimism. And then the team kept on winning. They swept the White Sox, then made quick work of the Indians in a two-game set. They went on the road and took two in Detroit, then the first two of their series in Cleveland. They were 9-0 and had allowed just 22 runs with their ragtag pitching staff. Amazingly, they did this all without all-world outfielder Carlos Beltrán, who didn’t return from his injury until mid-April.

Peña just shrugged his shoulders and grinned at the hot start.

“I must be doing something right.”

Even after the winning streak, the Royals continued to play well, although they were aided by numerous blunders by their opponents. After a walk-off win over the Red Sox on May 5, they were 20-9 with a 5.5 game lead in the division. Peña used the rallying cry of “Nosotros Creamos!” or “We Believe!” as a team slogan. And the Royals bought in.

The club went into a tailspin in May, and by early June they were under .500, falling to 4.5 games out of first. Reliever Albie Lopez, who the Royals signed to a $1.5 million deal, was released immediately after a June game against the Twins where he gave up seven runs in less than an inning.

Despite gut-wrenching losses from a leaky bullpen, Peña maintained relentless optimism. “It’s just one game, boys!” he would say after the 16-2 loss that led to Lopez’s release. “Nobody died, We’re in first place. Dance a little.”

“You would follow someone like that anywhere,” added Sweeney.

And the Royals bounced back. They won 10 of 12 in June to take over first place in what was looking like a mediocre division. Everything seemed to be working. They signed former All-Star pitcher José Lima from the independent Atlantic League that summer. The 30-year-old had an infectious attitude that fit the clubhouse well and he won his first seven starts.

By the All-Star Game, the Royals’ lead had swollen to seven games. Any talk of trading Beltrán would have to wait.

Beltran is an MVP candidate. He’s a blossoming superstar. He’s a terrific defensive center fielder. Mike Sweeney may be the heart of this surprising team. But Carlos Beltran is the soul.

And the Royals cannot even consider trading him now, not with this team playing well, not with this town jazzed, not with a division championship up for grabs. Before the season? Sure. They could have traded him then. Everybody would have understood. But not now. No way. It’s a whole new ballgame.

-Joe Posnanski

The Royals went into the trade deadline clinging to a slim lead over the White Sox, with the Twins a few games back. They found themselves in the unusual position of being buyers, but General Manager Allard Baird was reluctant to sacrifice the future. The Royals sought a trade for impending free agent Juan Gonzalez of the Rangers as a replacement for the injured Sweeney. But the two-time MVP had a no-trade clause and an injury scuttled any chance of a deal. The Royals had talks with the Mets about outfielder Jeromy Burnitz and second baseman Roberto Alomar, but neither ended up in KC.

Instead, the Royals shored up the bullpen by acquiring relievers Curtis Leskanic from the Brewers, Graeme Lloyd from the Mets, and Alan Levine from the Devil Rays. In August, they picked up talented, but oft-injured outfielder Rondell White from the Expos and starting pitcher Brian Anderson from the Indians. They signed former Royals All-Star pitcher Kevin Appier in August, and in his second start back, he shut out the Yankees over six innings in front of 35,000 fans in an 11-0 laugher. It was the first win for the Royals at home against the Bronx Bombers in three years.

“We’ve got a lot of guys hurt,” Sweeney said. “For us to win, let alone score 11 runs against the Yankees, makes you scratch your head.

“But Tony Pena tells us we’re in a pennant race and this should be the happiest time of our lives. And we went out with a makeshift lineup and scored 11 runs.”

On August 29, they were still tied for first with the White Sox and the Twins just a half-game back, but were clinging for dear life with a team running on fumes. They dropped seven of nine in early September just as the Twins were getting red hot. The Royals made one last push, winning eight of ten in late September, but actually lost ground because the Twins won ten in a row.

The Royals finished 83-79, seven games back of the Twins. Still, it was their first winning season in nearly a decade, which had implications - it locked Mike Sweeney into his long-term deal. It also gave the Royals hope they weren’t far from contention, hopes that would be dashed the next year as they fell back to irrelevance.

But for one year, one Krispy-Kreme-filled year, the Royals were fun.