Kansas City Royals Countdown: Top Five First Basemen

Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

A new Golden Age of baseball may be dawning for the Kansas City Royals. After decades of frustration, of seeing top players leave either in free agency or in trades that resulted in virtually nothing in return, the Royals may be back. Kansas City has become a destination, as Alex Rios stated that he came to the Royals to make the postseason.

With that 45th anniversary of the Royals inaugural season behind us, it seems like a good time to take a look back over the top players at each position in the Royals past. Last week, we reviewed the top five catchers in Royals history; today, we look at the top five first basemen to don the blue and white.

While the Royals first basemen have been better than the catchers, it has not been by much. However, there may be hope that this can change, especially if Eric Hosmer can put together a season like the latter part of his 2013 campaign. There is certainly plenty of room in the latter half of this list for Hosmer to make a jump.

To compile this list, the Fangraphs list of career Wins Above Replacement was used as a guideline. A minimum of 1000 plate appearances was also used as a guideline, which actually limited the list to all of twelve players, including Ken Harvey and his -2.1 WAR. I was actually surprised it was that low.

At any rate, here is the list of the top five first basemen in Kansas City Royals history. Let us know if you feel someone should be on the list, or if you feel someone should have been ranked higher!

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