Center Fielder—Amos Otis
(with Royals from 1970-1983)
42.0 fWAR, 44.6 bWAR
.280/.347/.433, 1891 G, 7970 PA, 118 OPS+ (with Royals)
The Royals acquired Otis in a trade with the Mets before the 1970 season that ended up being a massive steal. They sent Joe Foy to the Mets for Amos Otis and Bob Johnson. Foy would only play another 140 games over the rest of his career, while Otis would play almost 1,900 with the Royals. The team would also trade Johnson for their starting shortstop in the 70s, Freddie Patek.
Amos Otis was a good-hitting, smooth-fielding outfielder. He made it look easy. He seemed to glide across the outfield rather than run. He was also very popular with the fans, who would chant “Aaaaay-Oh! Aaaaay-Oh!” at Kauffman Stadium. Otis was also the first Royal to play in an all-star game when he made the AL team in 1970 (Ellie Rodriguez had made the team in 1969 but didn’t play). Otis is a forgotten part of one of the most famous plays in all-star game history:
Otis was the centerfielder who made the throw to the plate to catcher Ray Fosse when Pete Rose knocked Fosse into next week and scored the winning run. That all-star game was the first of four straight AL all-star teams that Otis would be selected for. The following year, Otis would hit over .300 for the first time and lead the league in steals, with 52. He was coming into his own as a player.
The best power-hitting year Otis had in his career was in 1973 when he hit 26 home runs and had 93 RBI. He also won the Gold Glove for his defense in centerfield and finished third in AL MVP voting behind Reggie Jackson and Jim Palmer.
He couldn’t repeat that kind of power hitting in 1974 and grew frustrated with the perception that he didn’t play with maximum effort. Early in 1975, he talked about this with a Kansas City sportswriter, saying, “Even in 1973, when I had my best year, people said I could do better. Last year I didn’t have the year I wanted to have. I got to pressing. It was just something I couldn’t overcome. Everything I do on this team, I’m first or second. I can’t do much more than that. I know I didn’t have the year I wanted, but you can’t always do it. I got so I hated to come to the park. It was embarrassing. As soon as you came out of the dugout, they were on you. After a while, you just hated to play.”
His frustrations continued in the 1975 season, which was limited by a midseason tonsillectomy. He played in just 132 games, the fewest he’d played in since 1970. Things were better in 1976. Otis played a full season and led the league in doubles while scoring 93 runs and producing 86 RBI. That season ended on a bad note, though. In the first game of the ALCS against the Yankees, Otis sprained his ankle running out a ground ball. He missed the rest of the series.
Despite his rebound and strong 1976 season, Otis was nearly traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates prior to the 1977 season. The Royals and Pirates agreed on a deal that would send Otis and Cookie Rojas to Pittsburgh for Al Oliver, but Rojas used his 10-and-5 veto rights to reject the trade.
Otis spent another seven years with Kansas City. He had a terrific ALCS in 1978 but the Royals lost to the Yankees for the third straight year. They made it back to the ALCS against the Yankees in 1980 and finally got over the hump, beating the Yankees in three straight games and advancing to the World Series. Otis was 11 for 23, with four runs, three home runs, and seven RBI in the World Series. Unfortunately, the Royals lost to the Phillies in six games.
The 1983 season was the last year in Kansas City for Otis. He was 36 years old and had his worst year with the bat as a Royal, hitting .261/.313/.357. He also spent considerable time in right field. The team released him after the season and he signed a free agent deal with the Pittsburgh Pirates, the team he had nearly been traded to seven years earlier. He was terrible with Pittsburgh, hitting .165/.213/.206 in 40 games. They released him in August.
Sabermetric pioneer Bill James wrote about Otis in the 1984 Bill James Baseball Abstract: “Amos Otis was an intensely private man leading an intensely public life. He disdained showmanship—probably he hated showmanship—of any type and to any extent. He could never quite deal with the fact that his business was putting on a show. This is what is called ‘moodiness’ by the media. Yet there was a rare, deep honesty about him that was the defining characteristic of him both as a man and as a ballplayer.” In 1986, Amos Otis and Steve Busby were the first players inducted into the Kansas City Royals Hall of Fame.