There is a stark difference between the aging stars that ended up on the Royals in the 70s and early 80s and those that joined the team in the late 80s and 90s. In the 80s, players began changing teams at much younger ages. The Royals acquisitions of veterans between 1973 and 1985, by and large, were failures. Most of the acquisitions between 1986 and 1995 still had some tred left on their tires and a few made significant contributions in their tenure with Kansas City. The second major difference is that in the ’73-’85 period the flow of aging free agents was a trickle.
Let’s look at the old stars from the late 80s.
