Royals RBI men

Hey, Dirty, baby I got your RBIs, don’t you worry

Back in 1999, Jermaine Dye, Carlos Beltran, and Mike Sweeney accomplished something that no other trio of Kansas City Royal teammates had done in the franchise’s history: they each collected at least 100 runs batted in (RBIs) in the same season, Dye leading the way with 119 followed by Beltran’s 108 and Sweeney’s 102.

Before then, there’d only been two years in which even two Royals reached the 100-RBI mark in the same season: 1979 (Darrell Porter with 112 and George Brett with 107) and 1988 (Brett with 103 and Danny Tartabull with 102).

Since 1999, three Royals have driven in 100 RBIs or more in the same season just once—the very next year, in 2000, when Sweeney led the way with a franchise-record 144 followed by Dye with 118 and the legendary Joe Randa collected 106.

Only one other time have two Royals teammates collected at least 100 RBIs in the same season since 2000. That happened in 2002 when Beltran led the team with 105 as Raul Ibanez drove in 103.

One more thing about those years above—1979, 1988, 1999, 2000, and 2002. In none of them did the Royals make the playoffs. While the ‘79 and ‘88 teams posted winning records, the ‘99, ‘00, and ‘02 teams didn’t even come close to doing so. That 2002 team lost 100 games.

Before Vinnie Pasquantino’s unfortunate injury on August 29th, the 2024 Royals were on pace to match those 1999 and 2000 squads as the only Royals teams with three members with at least 100 RBIs.

Instead, they’ll settle for two: Salvador Perez and Bobby Witt Jr., each of whom has passed that mark in recent games. Even better, unlike the five previously mentioned Royals teams, this Royals team made the playoffs.

Here are some other fun historical Royals RBI statistics:

The First Leader

That would be Joe Foy with 71. Next in line on that inaugural team was, naturally, Lou Piniella with 68.

The First 100-RBI Man

John Mayberry first accomplished the feat in 1972 with 100 RBIs on the nose. He did it again the very next season before collecting 106 in 1975.

Single-Season Records

Al Cowens drove in 112 in 1977, which Darrell Porter tied in 1979. It fell the following year when George Brett nabbed 118. That was also short-lived as Hal McRae drove in a whopping 133 in 1982.

No one really approached that until Sweeney blew past it with 144 in 2000. Since then, only two Royals have driven in more than 110 runs—Jorge Soler in 2019 with 117 and Salvador Perez with 121 in 2021.

Follow the Leader

George Brett led the Royals in RBIs in six different seasons, a franchise record. Second on that list? Billy Butler, who did so in five consecutive seasons from 2009 through 2013, peaking with 107 in 2012.

Mayberry led the team in RBIs four times while Amos Otis, Carlos Beltran, and—obviously—Emil Brown led the team three times.

Multiple 100-RBI Seasons

Six Royals have had multiple 100-RBI seasons.

Beltran and Brett did so four times—the former in 1999, 2001, 2002, and 2003 while the latter spread his out a bit, first doing it in 1979, then 1980, before not doing it again until 1985 and reaching the goal one more time in 1988.

Mayberry and Tartabull each surpassed 100 RBIs on three different occasions while Sweeney and Dye both did so twice.

Randomness

In the Royals’ second season, Bob Oliver nearly reached 100 RBIs, finishing the year with 99.

Steve Balboni led the 1984 Royals with 77 RBIs—the lowest single-season total in the 80s.

In the strike-shortened season of 1995, in which the Royals went 70-74, Gary Gaetti racked up 96 RBIs.

The next season, which was back to 162 games, Craig Paquette led the team—with 67.

Dean Palmer spent one full season with the Royals, 1998, in which he led the team with 119 RBIs.

Emil Brown led the team in RBIs in three consecutive seasons, from 2005 to 2007, with 86, 81, and 62.

Yuniesky Betancourt tied Billy Butler with a team-leading 78 RBIs in 2010.

The team’s longest stretch without a player reaching 100 RBIs is eight seasons, from 2004 to 2011, broken by Butler.

When the Royals won the pennant in 2014, Alex Gordon led the team in RBIs—with 74.

The following year, when the Royals won it all, Kendrys Morales led the team with 106.

In the pandemic-shortened season of 2020, with 38 RBIs, Maikel Franco led the team.

Bobby Witt Jr. has already led the team in RBIs three times—that’s more times as the likes of Hal McRae, Balboni, Tartabull, Mike Sweeney, Eric Hosmer, and Salvador Perez.