Pat Burrell Would Have Been a Historically Great Royal, If He Had Been a Royal

Pat Burrell retired today, proving once again that if Brian Sabean doesn't want you, no one wants you. Nevertheless, we pause to honor him today.

Burrell doesn't seem likely to have a huge place in history, falling somewhere in the Hall of Good category, and the ongoing WAR-revolution isn't likely to help his legacy. He was, even at his supposed peak, quite often a 1.5 win player. At least by some metrics. Still, in nine seasons with the Phillies, he hit 251 home runs. Had he been a Royal, this would be quite many.

George Brett leads the Royals with 317 homers. Second is Mike Sweeney, who managed just 197, so Burrell, had he been a Royal, would have comfortably been second in team history in home runs. Well then.

The Royals don't really have a comparable player to Burrell in their history, who would perhaps be close to some weird averaging of Danny Tartabull's power with Hal McRae's or Amos Otis's longevity as a Royal. Tartabull managed 124 homers in just 657 games as a Royal, while McRae and Otis took 1800+ games to get to 169 and 193, respectively.

So anyway, if he had been a Royal, he would have been a big deal. But he wasn't.