A team of players who have been both Royals and Giants

Over the past couple seasons I've slowly been releasing a series of posts in which I pair the Padres and whatever team they're playing, look up all the players who spent time with both clubs, and construct a 25-man roster. Since the Friars' season is over, as are the seasons of 27 other teams, I thought I'd mash up the Royals and the Giants, the participants of this year's World Series.

As I always do, I used Baseball Reference's multi-franchise finder tool to pull up all the guys who have played for both teams. In the case of the Royals and Giants, there have been 77. I then separate the wheat from the chaff, first by determining the starting lineup. I make my selections based on the players' peaks and full careers without taking into account how they performed for either team in question. If I limited myself to guys who did well with both teams, this post would be completely different and titled "Carlos Beltran sure is good at baseball".

Starting Lineup:

C- Benito Santiago
1B- Orlando Cepeda
2B- Rey Sanchez
SS- Neifi Perez
3B- Miguel Tejada
LF- Jose Cardenal
CF- Carlos Beltran
RF- Reggie Sanders

Santiago, Tejada, and Sanders all show up very frequently in the Padres combined team posts, a testament to both their performance and their tendency toward transiency. As you can see, the Achilles heel of this team is the infield. Due to a lack of any other options, the starting lineup features three shortstops, two of which are historically notable offensive black holes. I sorted them out according to games played by position.

As you can see, Tejada has, by far, the most tenure at shortstop, but he's also the only one who has anything even resembling significant time at third base. There was a similar situation with the outfielders, where left field is occupied by the center fielder who played left the most.

Bench:

C- Fran Healy
IF- Jeff Keppinger
IF- Steve Scarsone
OF- Dave Henderson
DH/OF- Chili Davis

Healy is far from a household name but he had a solid nine-year career as a backup and hit well in his only season as a starter, 1974. Keppinger and Scarsone are further evidence of the dearth of decent infielders, while Dave Henderson and Chili Davis would be starters on a lot of combined teams. In fact, Chili Davis would be the starting DH for this theoretical team in theoretical games played in American League stadiums. Theoretical.

Starting Rotation:

Gaylord Perry
Vida Blue
Bud Black
Atlee Hammaker
Pat Rapp

The rotation starts out strong with a Hall of Famer and the Black & Blue tandem, and predictably falls off from there. Hammaker did have one great season and a couple decent ones, and Pat Rapp makes the cut thanks to not being Brett Tomko.

Bullpen:

Dan Quisenberry
Lindy McDaniel
Roberto Hernandez
Mark Davis
Luis Aquino
Ramon Ramirez
Jeremy Affeldt

The bullpen is closer-heavy, with Quisenberry, McDaniel, Cy Young Award winner Davis, and the original Roberto Hernandez (not to be confused with The Artist Formerly Known As Fausto Carmona). McDaniel doesn't come up in the discussion of great closers, but that's because he was leading the league in saves before saves were even a thing yet. The underrated Aquino, who used to show up in nearly every pack of baseball cards I bought back in his Royals and Marlins days, would serve as the swingman as he had years of success in that role.

This team certainly has its shortcomings, but I think it would win enough games to take a wild card spot. And, as we saw this year, that's all you need.

Organizational Depth:

C- Brent Mayne, Alberto Castillo, Brian Johnson, Bob Melvin
1B- Dave McCarty, Todd Benzinger
IF- Tony Abreu, Brad Wellman, Wilson Delgado, Bob Heise
3B/OF- Chris James, Billy Sorrell
OF- Melky Cabrera, Jeff Francoeur, Jose Guillen, Gregor Blanco, Tom Goodwin, Trenidad Hubbard, Mike Kingery, Michael Tucker, Jerry Martin, Jim Wohlford, Pat Sheridan
P- Brett Tomko, Jamey Wright, Sidney Ponson, Juan Berenguer, Jonathan Sanchez, Todd Wellemeyer, Jay Witasick, Denny Bautista, Cory Bailey, Enrique Burgos, Rich Gale, Mark Gardner, J.C. Gutierrez, Alan Hargesheimer, Doug Henry, Ryan Jensen, Matt Kinney, Mike LaCoss, Al Levine, Renie Martin, Mike McCormick, Jose Mijares, Andy McGaffigan, Alvin Morman, Ray Sadecki, Dan Schatzeder, Scott Service, Jerry Spradlin, Bob Tufts

These are the guys who didn't make the cut, and got sent down to the Sacramentomaha Storm Cats River Chasers, the logical AAA affiliate of the Sansas Frity Royants. Is there anyone I demoted who would make your team, or anyone I benched who you would start? Let us know in the comments how your team would look.