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Most Beloved (Obscure) Royals Bracket: The "Play-in" Match-ups, part 1

Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports


When the most-beloved bracket came out, the first thing that many thought of is that many of our favorites were never good enough to get into that bracket. I looked through Royals rosters over the years, and I tried to pick out some guys who were less prominent but were nonetheless loved by various people for a variety of reasons. I divided them into four "regions": broad categories of reasons these players were beloved. Today, we're going to vote on some "play-in" match-ups for the first two regions.

Before we get to the brackets, Here is who is not included:

Current Royals

In the first draft of my bracket, I included Hunter Dozier and Brad Keller, two of my favorites from the current roster. But after I got input from the "obscure player" thread of all the players I missed, I decided that it was unfair to include them here, both for reasons of recency bias and that these guys might (and we hope will) develop into long-term prominent Royals. So no Keller, Dozier, Mondesi, O'Hearn, Maverick, or any other current guys you really root for.

Imported short-term regulars

This was hard to categorize, but I didn't think imported guys who didn't fit the postseason heroes categories belonged. They weren't "obscure" or really "Royals." So no Gary Gaetti or Greg Gagne, no Gregg Jefferies, Jeff King, or Jay Bell, no Dean Palmer, Chili Davis, Matt Stairs, or Ervin Santana. I really liked some of these guys, but I decided not to include them.

Random Relievers

I think one type of player that we develop an irrational love for is a reliever that catches your eye for one reason or another, but often that love is very individualized. There are a few relievers and swing men in the bracket, but they had longer careers or bigger moments than some favorites that were nominated like Leo Nunez, Nate Adcock, Steve Shifflett, Peter Moylan, Tim Collins, or whoever else comes to mind.

Voting is hosted by Survey Monkey: Click here to vote.

The Fleeting Glory Region

Fleeting Glory consists of players whose success was short-lived or mostly confined to a certain big moment. Each region consists of two sub-regional brackets, which would then match up in the Elite Eight. The two sub-regions are "Flash in the Pan" (guys with short-lived success with the Royals) and "Postseason Heroes" (contributors in championship runs). In general (but not strictly) seeds are determined by length of tenure with the team.

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"Play-In" Match-ups

8-seed (Flash-in-the-Pan): Luis Aquino vs. Paul Byrd

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Maybe it's just me, but I really loved Luis Aquino, an underrated swingman for the Royals in the late '80s and early '90s. From 1988-1991, Aquino logged about 400 innings with an ERA+ of 119. He had a peculiar pause at the top of his motion that made him unique. After a down year in 1992, he signed as a free agent with the expansion Marlins , where he was their most reliable pitcher in their first year.

Paul Byrd's story was told well in a previous article by Jesse Anderson. He was a finesse righty who kept hitters off-balance to carve a career for himself. If he were not mentioned so much by people on this site, he would really fall into the "imported regulars" group, but his 17 wins for a terrible '02 Royals squad endeared him to many.

13-seed (Flash-in-the-Pan): Cheslor Cuthbert vs. Paulo Orlando

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These two guys go together. During the Royals failed title defense in 2016, there were times in that season when it seemed that Orlando and/or Cuthbert were the best hitters in the lineup. Orlando had a torrid May and good September, and Cuthbert was very productive in June and July. Orlando finished with a 2.4 WAR.

Orlando burst on the scene in 2015 with a bunch of triples, earning him the nickname "3-PO," and he was a part of the postseason roster. Cuthbert didn't have either of those things, so originally I had Orlando but not Cuthbert. But I decided to allow Cuthbert a chance at Orlando's spot.

14-seed (Postseason Heroes): Jorge Orta vs. Dane Iorg

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Jorge Orta's place in Royals' history is sort of dubious (although overblown), being called safe in the infamous play that led off the inning in which his opponent in this match-up became the hero. Orta was a former All-Star second baseman and rightfielder with the White Sox and Indians who came to the Royals in 1984 at the age of 33, after bouncing around for a couple of terrible seasons. He had a nice year for the Royals' division-winning 1984 team (120 OPS+) sharing time at DH with Hal McRae as well as playing some outfield. From 1985 on, he was strictly a DH (with a 92 OPS+), which meant that, with McRae also on the roster, the Royals carried two exclusive DHs (plus Steve Balboni) on the roster until his release in June 1987.

Dane Iorg's Royals career would be entirely unremarkable if it weren't for his game-winning 2-RBI single with the bases loaded that won game 6 of the 1985 World Series. Iorg was a two-time World Series hero, logging time at DH for the 1982 Cardinals and hitting .529 in 17 at-bats. In fact, after going 1-2 in each of his subsequent postseason series (ALCS in 1984 and '85, and the '85 Series), he never hit below .500 in a postseason series. In his Royals career as a utility man, he hit .244 over 365 at-bats in 1984-85.

15-seed (Postseason Heroes): Brandon Finnegan vs. Johnny Cueto

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These are another couple of guys who go together, with one traded for the other. Finnegan was the Royals' first-round draft pick out of TCU, where had pitched in the College World Series. The Royals promoted him quickly through the system, and he pitched key innings in the Royals epic Wild Card game that year and later became the first to pitch in both the CWS and the World Series in the same year. The next year, the Royals couldn't decide whether they needed him in the big-league bullpen or their future rotation, and he was sort of jerked around all year, pitching at different levels and in different roles, until he headlined the Johnny Cueto deal. He was just OK for the Reds until he injured his shoulder, and he hasn't been able to regain his command since the injury.

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Johnny Cueto was hailed as the frontline ace the Royals needed when they acquired him near the 2015 trade deadline. He pitched very inconsistently as a Royal, including putting the Royals in a series hole against a weak Astros Wild Card team in the ALDS. He redeemed himself with a sterling game 5 performance to clinch the series, and after getting pummeled in his lone ALCS start, he pitched a 2-hit complete game to give the Royals a 2-0 lead in the World Series. As expected, he was a very short-term rental, leaving as a free agent after the season. He started the All-Star Game for the NL the next season, giving up home runs to both Eric Hosmer and Salvador Perez.

The Personalities Region

"Personalities" consists of players who made their mark on a personal level. The "#AlwaysRoyal" sub-region consists of favorites that were hard to categorize in other places. These are guys who are linked to the Royals through their longevity with the team or unique story. The "Character/Clown" sub-region consists of people with big personalities, who let fans into knowing who they were as men or who are the subject of many fan-favorite stories.

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8-seed (#AlwaysRoyal): Marty Pattin vs. Doug Bird

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Marty Pattin (the "Duck") had a seven-year career with the Royals as a swing-man and reliever. His best seasons were 1975-77, when he posted a 28-27 record with a 3.11 ERA (123 ERA+) over 119 games (40 GS) and nearly 450 innings. He was solid in his remaining years as a Royal, though with a decreased workload. He later coached at the University of Kansas.

Doug Bird was among the Royals' most effective pre-Quiz-era relievers. He saved 20 games as a rookie in 1973 and also had a good year as a starting pitcher for the first Royals division-winning club in 1976, going 12-10 with a 3.39 ERA and leading the league in fewest walks per nine innings.

13-seed (#AlwaysRoyal): Mike Magnante vs. Rusty Meacham

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Mike Magnante pitched for the Royals for six seasons. After an impressive rookie season (2.45 ERA) as a reliever, the Royals tried him as a starter for a couple of years with little success. He settled in as a moderately effective lefty out of the pen for several years after that. His best season was with the Astros the year after he left the Royals and later found some success with the A's, too. He is perhaps most famous now for being the sad-sack lefty reliever with two knee braces that Brad Pitt/Billy Beane had to cut in Moneyball.

The Royals claimed Rusty Meacham off of waivers in 1992, and he was sensational his first year, posting a 147 ERA+ and more than 100 innings. He was injured (and terrible) the next year, good again in '94, then about average in '95 before being traded to Seattle. In four seasons with the Royals he posted a 119 ERA+ in 233 IP.

15-seed (Characters & Clowns): Kurt Bevacqua vs. Rey Palacios

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This match-up is a couple of "deep cuts" for people who are probably complete unknowns to people who weren't fans when they were on the team. "Dirty Kurt" Bevacqua was a hard-nosed, get-dirty, utility player for the Royals in 1973, when he posted a career-high 40 RBI, mostly backing up 3B Paul Schaal the year before George Brett's rookie year. He was traded before the '74 season but was re-acquired before the end of the year, pulling a brief second tour with the Royals. He is beloved in San Diego for his 1984 World Series performance with the Padres as their DH, hitting over .400 with a HR in the Padres' only World Series game they have won in their history.

Looking back at Rey Palacios's stats, he's clearly a "you had to be there" kind of favorite. He was an athletic young catcher who could run and play other positions. He couldn't hit a lick (career .193/.244/.316), but his RBI total over his 114 Major League at-bats is an 89-RBI pace over 600 AB's. He hit an extra-inning walk-off grand slam off of Jeff Reardon in 1990. In these years, before Mike Macfarlane established himself, while the Royals were messing around with the likes of Larry Owen at catcher, Rey Palacios was a gritty, hard-playing ray of false hope.

16-seed (#AlwaysRoyal): Brent Mayne vs. Jeff Conine

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Brent Mayne and Jeff Conine came up together in 1990. Mayne was a defense-first catcher, with the upside of becoming a lefty-swinging version of the Royals current veteran catcher, Bob Boone. He never hit as well as Boone--in fact, in his 42-year-old swan song season, Boone posted a 72 OPS+ in 117 at-bats. Mayne's career Royals OPS+ was 65 in 2200 plate appearances. He backed up Mike Macfarlane from 1990-94, then was the lefty side of a platoon in 1995, pulling most of the playing time at catcher. The Royals traded him after the season for a non-prospect, and he hit close to league average over the next few years, before returning to the Royals as their #1 catcher in 2002-03, when he hit .241/.308/.328.

Jeff Conine was also someone who played much better in other uniforms. Conine was a 58th-round draft pick and a national racqetball champion who reached the Majors after a breakout 1990 season in AA. He was a candidate (along with Bob Hamelin) to be the heir to George Brett in the lineup as 1B/DH, but the Royals never showed much confidence in Conine, protecting Phil Hiatt and David Howard over him in the 1992 expansion draft. Conine became "Mr. Marlin," finishing third in the Rookie of the Year voting in 1993 and earning All-Star nods in 1994-95 with the Marlins. He returned to the Royals during the Marlins' post-championship purge in 1998. He played poorly, posting an 87 OPS+ in an injury-plagued season. He had a resurgence with Baltimore and back in Florida, winning a second championship with the Marlins in 2003.

So now it's time to vote!


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What other memories do you have of these players?

This FanPost was written by a member of the Royals Review community. It does not necessarily reflect the views of the editors and writers of this site.