In 1980, George Brett hit .390, flirting with the magical .400 line all season long. He was hitting .406 on August 30th and was at .400 as late as September 19, game number 148 on the season. In the last forty years, we've really only seen a handful of players get this close to .400.

What drove Brett's quest that season was an absolutely insane July. Brett played regularly through June 10, before hitting the DL. To that point, he was having a MVP-level season, but not necessarily an all-time great campaign, hitting .337/.407/.609. Ho, hum.

On July 10th Brett returned, going 2-4 in a 3-2 Royals win (Splitt picked up the win). The next day he went 3-5 as Jack Morris expertly pitched to the score in a 7-3 Royals win. And that was pretty much the entire month. Brett hit .586/.636/.862 in his first seven games back, raising his batting average to .374. A 2-3 game on the final day of the month pushed him all the way up to .390.

Overall his July line was .494/.541/.812 in 98 PAs. Crazy.

In August he hit .430 and got over .400 on the season. Too bad he only hit .324 in September.

So really, we should just pause and reflect on that month. One of the greatest players of all time, in one of his best seasons, in the middle of an absolutely insane hot streak. Your homework assignment is to find other singularly great Brett months.

We really don't talk about George Brett enough around here.

The following are interesting, purely random splits from Brett's career:

• Was terrible leading off a game. Hit .232/.273/.392 starting the game, which he did 132 times. To start an inning, he was better, hitting .302/.346/.492.
• OPS by outs. 0- .869, 1-.864, 2-.839. I guess he just wasn't clutch.
• Scratch that, his best inning offensively was extra innings, where he had a 1.019 OPS. Second best inning? The third - .887. Worst inning? The 9th - .774 OPS.
• Brett hit really well against the Blue Jays (didn't they have good pitching in the 1980s?) posting a .953 OPS against those Canadians. His worst opponent was, weirdly, the Indians (.753)

Scott Pose turns 45 today.

Pose was a Royal great in 1999-00, was the first Marlin to step to the plate in 1993 and, uhh, was also named Pose.

He slugged .288 in the 1990s, which was tough to do.

Five Fun Facts About Scott Pose

Oh what a day this is for Royals fans. Today Buddy Biancalana turns 52 and Pat Tabler turns 54.

Biancalana played six seasons for the Royals (1982-87) hitting .213/.269/.304. Even in the 1980s, that wasn't much offense, as that's an OPS+ of 56. In 1985, the year the Royals won the World Series, Buddy played in 81 games and hit a TPJ-esque .188, though he did somehow manage a .277 OBP. Nobody talks about his awesome '86 however, when he hit .242 and nearly manged a .300 OBP (.298).

Tabler was a Royal from 1988-90, hitting .279/.339/.347. Tabler joined the Royals in 1988 after being traded from Cleveland for Bud Black. In 1990, he was sent to the Mets in return for eventual Royal legend Archie Corbin.

It's a terrible shame these two never played together.

When I was performing the extensive research needed to complete last week's Carlos Febles post, I noticed the name of Jed Hansen. Hansen played for the Royals from 1997 to 1999 and I had absolutely no memory of him. Now, I'm no modern day Diedrich Knickerbocker, but when you've written loving profiles of Scott Pose and Joe Vitiello and their like, you expect some things of yourself. Had absolutely no recollection of Hansen however.

Hansen was our prodigal. Or, perhaps he was that on-again-off-again, flame. The Royals parted ways with him twice, only to bring him back. There was a spark of magic, some early years of promise, and a name spelled with an "e" instead of an "o." There were memories, I just never had them.

• Hansen was a 2nd round pick out of Stanford in 1994. Only one Major Leaguer of any note was taken in that round, but he was a big one: Troy Glaus, who was taken 14 spots ahead of Hansen. In the first round the Royals took Matt Smith, one of the bigger busts the team selected in the 1990s. The Royals' best selection that year was Jose Rosado, who was taken in the 12th round. That is, unless Matt Treanor EXPLODES next season.
• Hansen never really had a strong minor league season, though for a second baseman he wasn't bad in 1996, when he hit 12 homers and slugged .462. In 1998, when he couldn't earn a spot on the Royals as a 25 year old, he slugged .472 with a .347 OBP in Omaha, which also wasn't bad.
• His moment of glory was his August-September debut in 1997. In 34 games (111 PAs) he hit .309/.394/.426. You'll notice the batting average and walks, along with some decent power (6 2Bs, 1 3B and 1 HR, off of Luis Andujar of Toronto). After 13 games Hansen was hitting .381/.449/.595. He didn't quite collapse after that, but it's plain enough that he was holding on. He rebounded with a strong final week of the season, pulling his batting average up from the .280s depths.

Continue reading this post »

I have in my mind some notion that Carlos Febles was a good player once. Sure, it didn't last and didn't matter, but it happened, once. Right? He was some late Clinton-Era Mike Aviles, or so I remember, part of Dos Carlos. And then his sister married Angel Berroa (or something crazy like that, probably not that, but like it) and he rode off into the sunset.

Did this happen?

What a strange career. There were always the low batting average, but some years he walked a little and had some decent power, but never in a consistent way. To be sure, he was a second baseman, but for his era the composite line was never even close to average, peaking at an OPS+ of 88 back in the golden light of 1999. What I like best about Febles's career is the absolute destruction of his final season. At age 27, with the Royals actually competing for the division, with Febles a seasoned veteran... yea... here's a .299 OBP and a .260 SLG in a high offense era. Nice working with you.

Continue reading this post »

This was one of those not-stunning-stunning-news stories. Or maybe it was expected-but-not-expected. I'm not sure. But one year ago today, Gil Meche retired, walking away from his last year of pay from the Royals. Meche saved the team $12 million dollars.

• Breaking News: Royals Pitcher Gil Meche to Retire - Royals Review

On the day it happened, I argued with quite a few of you that this was not entirely the case. I didn't doubt the veracity of the reporting on the subject -- remember, when it first happened no one really knew what was going on -- I just figured that there was likely some settlement in place that we'd eventually, maybe, hear about. (I still suspect it was a little more complicated than simply an honorable man walking away from money... the insurance/injury angles complicate the issue on both sides, but we'll likely never know. But it was good PR for both sides to have it end this way, so it did.)

In the end, the Royals paid Meche $43 million for four years, and overall it's a difficult contract to evaluate. Meche pitched very well in 2007-08, then moderately passable in 2009, then barely at all in 2010. By a pure WAR or whatever you prefer calculation, the eventual deal of 4/$43 wasn't that terrible, though it was incredibly front loaded performance wise. Of course, that changes if we take away the Royals' good fortune, as they paid north of $35 million for Meche's last, oh, 23 starts and some desultory relief work.

Continue reading this post »

Wow, this is a big one. Steve Balboni turns 55 today.

Balboni was one of the notable figures on the 1985 World Championship team and because of the context of the mid-1980s, his fame was bigger than perhaps now makes sense. Video games and his straight-from-central-casting appearance also helped.

In five seasons with the Royals, Balboni hit .230/.294/.459. From 1984-86 Balboni was at his best, hitting .231/.304/.474, which was good for an OPS 109. Balboni hit .320/.433/.320 in the 1985 World Series. His 36 homers in 1985 are still the franchise season record. Balboni is 9th in team history with 119 home runs, a position he should hold for a few more years. Billy Butler or Alex Gordon will likely pass Balboni sometime in 2014.

We don't really do retrospective sabermetrics for non-Hall of Fame players, but Balboni was probably one of the more overrated players of the 1980s, for all the reasons you can imagine. But today, we honor him.