5 former KC Royals players you may have forgotten were All-Stars

The Kansas City Royals are flush with All-Star talent in 2025, sending four players to the 95th annual Midsummer Classic in Atlanta on Tuesday night.

The Royals are in a period of contention now after miraculously accelerating their rebuild with an ALDS run after a none year postseason absence, meaning memorable All-Stars like Bobby Witt Jr. and Salvador Perez (although not this year) are far more common.

However, as every Royals fans know, there have been plenty of periods that baseball in Kansas City has not been nearly as exciting as it is now, meaning All-Stars didn't grow on trees at Kauffman Stadium. This resulted in some odd All-Star choices, ones which perhaps many Royals fans could have easily forgotten about.

5 former KC Royals players you may have forgotten were All-Stars

Andrew Benintendi - 2022

Between putting himself on the map with the Boston Red Sox in the first five years of his career to undergoing a career downfall with the Chicago White Sox, sometimes it easy forget the two years of Benintendi's between Sox.

The majority of those two years were with Kansas City, and while it was only a year an a half, it was arguably the best baseball he's played in his career. In 227 games with the Royals, Benintendi slashed .294/.351/.424 with 20 HR and 112 RBI.

His best year came in 2022, as after capturing his first bit of hardware with the Royals in 2021 with a Gold Glove, he followed that up by becoming an All-Star for the first time the following year, the Royals' lone All-Star selection that year.

Benintendi would end up being dealt to the New York Yankees at the trade deadline just weeks later, adding another wrinkle into why it can be easy to forget his All-Star season. But in his half season for the Royals that year he hit .320 with a .785 OPS and 124 wRC+.

Jason Vargas - 2017

Moving back a half-decade now, and Royals fans will be familiar with Vargas, as he was a member of the 2014 AL Pennant winning rotation and had it not been a UCL tear which required Tommy John, he would have likely played a role in their World Series winning staff the following year.

However, Vargas was never the name that one would associate with leading a staff, making his first and only career All-Star appearance in 2017 a strange one.

In fact, his 4.16 ERA that season was the highest of any of the four years he played with Royals. However, his major league leading 18 wins was a career high by a longshot for the southpaw.

Aaron Crow - 2011

With Aaron Crow, the question to be asked shouldn't be; "do you remeber Aaron Crow's All-Star season?" It should be; "do you rememeber Aaron Crow?"

If your answer one or to both of those questions (more importantly the latter one) were yes, it's not your fault, because Crow's career was seemigly over in the blink of an eye.

Crow played just four seasons in MLB, all with the Royals until he was dealt to the Miami Marlins after the 2014 season, underwent Tommy John surgery and never managed to get back to the big leagues.

As short as his career was, he was a solid arm out of the 'pen, with three sub-3.50 ERA seasons from 2011 to 2013. And as a rookie in 2011 he crafted a 2.76 ERA and was Kansas City's lone All-Star representative that year.

Gil Meche - 2007

After pitching five of six seasons to a mid-4.00 to low-5.00 ERA with the Seattle Mariners, Meche took his "talents" to Kauffman Stadium ahead of the 2007 season.

And in his first season with Kansas City, he managed to pitch to a career best 3.67 ERA and 1.30 ERA en route to his first and only All-Star appearance.

Meche would toss one more sub-4.00 ERA the following season, before he'd be out of MLB after 2010, after sporting a 5.09 ERA campaign in 2009 and a 5.69 ERA in 2010.

Danny Tartabull - 1991

This is by no means intended to be a slight on Danny Tartabull, as the outfielder crafted a very respectable 14-year MLB career. He it over 250 HR (262) and nearly 1000 RBI (925) in his career and spent his most years for any one team with the Royals - he played five seasons from 1987 to 1991 hitting .290 with an .894 OPS in 657 games.

Before leaving town for the New York Yankees in free agency in 1992, Tartabull capped off his solid tenure with Kansas City with his lone career All-Star appearance in 1991. That season he hit an incredible .316 AVG, a major league leading .593 SLG, and 31 homers and 100 RBI.

Tartabull would never come close to the numbers he put up with the Royals after he left, as he was solid with the Yankees before bouncing around four separate organizations from 1995 to 1997. This gives fans a bit of a pass as to why they may not remember the fact he was indeed an All-Star in the prime of his career.