KC Royals: Ranking the club’s 4 Rookies of the Year

No. 1: Carlos “Mr. October Jr.” Beltran won in 1999 and is the best KC Royals ROY.

Carlos Beltran ranks as the best player who won Rookie of the Year as a Royal.

He hit .293/.337/.454 with a .791 OPS during his 1999 rookie season. He also clubbed 22 home runs, had 108 RBIs, and stole 27 bases during the 156 games he played for Kansas City that season.

In 2003, while Angel Berroa was making his own claim for AL Rookie of the Year, Beltran slashed .307/.389/.522 with a .911 OPS, 26 home runs, 100 RBIs, and 41 stolen bases.

The KC Royals then made the maddening mistake of dismantling the team for a 2005 rebuild, thus marking the end of Beltran’s tenure with the club as he was traded to the Houston Astros for Mike Wood, Mark Teahen, and John Buck.

Beltran continued to rake it up, as he hit for a combined .279/.350/.486 with a .837 OPS during his career. He had 435 home runs, 1,587 RBIs, 312 stolen bases, was a nine-time All-Star, a three-time Gold Glove Award winner, a two-time Silver Slugger, and won the now hotly debated 2017 World Series with the Astros. With this debacle still fresh in the mind, it was conflicting to rank Beltran over Sweet Lou for the No.1 overall Royals Rookie of the Year spot knowing Major League Baseball’s investigation implicated Beltran in Houston’s cheating scandal.

However, Beltran’s numbers still hold up in spite of this, the scandal doing nothing to tarnish what Beltran did as a Royal.

Out of the four Rookie of the Year winners in KC Royals history, Carlos Beltran ranks at the top.