It’s always interesting to see how a team is built. And it’s enlightening to see the players used to get to this point. That’s the purpose of the Royals Family Tree - to trace the current roster to it’s roots.

The following is a list of the Royals current 25-man roster with notes on how it was built. Specifically, the names of the players the Royals surrendered, in order to acquire certain players. It’s simple to trace. For an example, let’s use Yuniesky Betancourt. He was traded for Daniel Cortes and Derrick Saito. They are Betancourt’s roots. Saito was a 16th round draft pick, so his roots end there. However, Cortes came to the Royals from the White Sox in the Mike MacDougal trade. MacDougal was drafted in the first round by the Royals, who were using the Red Sox pick as compensation for signing Jose Offerman as a free agent. Offerman was acquired in a trade with the Dodgers where the Royals parted with Billy Brewer. (Brewer isn’t listed as a Root^4… He’s the only one and we don’t have space!) Brewer came to the Royals as a Rule 5 selection from the Montreal Expos. That ends Betancourt’s root. Whew. I guess we can blame Billy Brewer.

Betancourt has the longest roots on the current 25-man roster. As you’ll see, the Royals don’t have many players with long roots as the current roster is stocked with free agent acquisitions, waiver claims and draft picks. Below is the current Royals Family Tree.

Key to how players were acquired:

D - Draft, followed by round and year.

FA - Free Agent

R5 - Rule 5 draft

T - Trade

W - Waiver

How The 25-Man Roster Was Built

This chart includes players currently on the disabled list, so it won’t add up to 25. The recent trade deadline has meant this team has seen an influx of players originally drafted by the organization to fill the holes left by the departing players.