Royals take chance on fallen Silver Slugger in latest potential infield signing

The Kansas City Royals have been busy over the past week or so filling out their spring training roster before heading to Surprise in a few weeks time.

After signing the likes of Héctor Neris, Eli Morgan and arguably most notably former All-Star Aaron Sanchez to minor league deals with invites to spring training last week to add some competition to their pitching staff in camp, the Royals shifted back to the offesnive side of the ball in their latest bit of business.

On Wednesday morning, the team announced that they'd signed utility man Brandon Drury to minor league deal with an invitation to Surprise for spring training.

And of the several minor league deals the team has issued this winter to potential offensive depth options, perhaps this is the one that carries the most intrigue.

Royals sign Brandon Drury to minor league contract as potential utility option

Now, I understand it's a longshot that Drury cracks this roster in 2026. The 33-year-old is far removed from his Silver Slugger days, having not appeared in the majors since 2024.

However, longshot odds can be said for pretty much any player signed to a minor league deal, otherwise they probably would've inked a big league contract elsewhere.

As bad as Drury's 35 wRC+ and -2.1 fWAR season in 97 games with the Angels in 2024 was, followed by 70 wRC+ stint in the Angels and White Sox's Triple-A ranks in 2025, there's still plenty of reason to at least have an extended look at him in spring training based on his strong past track record.

In the three seasons prior to his 2024 collapse, Drury was one of the better offensive utility options in the game. In each of those seasons (understanding that 2021 was more of an impressive cameo than anything) he hit above .260, held OPS totals no lower that .783 and exceeding .800 in the '22 and '23 seasons and posted wRC+ totals above 110.

And in 2022 and 2023, when he played more regularly, he was an extremely efficient run producer, belting 25+ HR and 80+ RBI in both seasons. On top of that, he managed to exceed 2.5 fWAR in both those years as well.

This span of course also saw Drury take home his only career piece of hardware, with that aforementioned 2022 NL utility Silver Slugger award in his time split between Cincinnati and San Diego.

Again, odds are he likely won't warrant an addition to the 40-man roster. However, given the fact the Royals have needs in the corner outfield, at second base and on the bench in utility capacity, a name like Drury, who checks all those boxes and has been successful in doing so in semi-recent past, seems like a decent name to take a low-risk MiLB gamble on.