Players who played for the Astros and Royals | Immaculate Grid Answers July 26, 2023

Are you hooked on Immaculate Grid, the daily trivia game from Baseball Reference? We sure are! We’ll warn you right now—this blog post contains spoilers. But if you’re looking for a little help with today’s grid (or you already filled it out and want to know who else qualified) read on.

To fill out today’s grid, you need to choose a player who played for both the Astros and Royals. There were 74 players who played with both Houston and Kansas City. Here are some examples:

Carlos Beltrán

Carlos Beltrán made nine All-Star teams in a twenty-year major league career. Toiling in anonymity with the Kansas City Royals, his postseason explosion following a deal to the Houston Astros and subsequent stellar work with the New York Mets launched him to stardom. A 2017 World Series champion, Beltrán was named the new manager of the Mets for the 2020 season, only to fall from grace for his role in the Houston Astros cheating scandal.

Despite being considered a very good power hitter at the major league level, with twelve 20-homer seasons, Beltran struggled with power in the minor leagues. During the 1995 and 1996 seasons, spent playing for both the GCL Royals and Lansing Lugnuts, Beltran went 222 at-bats without a home run. In fact, at the time of his big league call-up in 1998, Beltrán had accumulated only 37 home runs in 1,230 minor league at-bats.

Sean Berry

Sean Berry was drafted by the Kansas City Royals but got his first real chance as a regular with the Montreal Expos after being traded for Chris Haney. He was the starting third baseman on the great 1994 Expos team that had the best record in baseball before the 1994 strike. His best season may have been 1996, with the Houston Astros, when he set career marks in home runs (17), RBI (95) and games played (132) en route to a .281/.328/.492 batting line. In eleven big league seasons, he batted a respectable .272 with a .445 slugging percentage.

Terry Puhl

Terry Puhl played in Organized Baseball from 1974 to 1991. He spent 15 years in the major leagues, all but one year with the Houston Astros. Puhl hit .280/.349/.388 in the majors and retired as the lifetime leader in outfielder fielding percentage (.993). He was a one-time All-Star selection in 1978, when he was leading the National League in hitting at the All-Star break and was the Astros’ lone representative at the Mid-summer Classic. He is among the top 10 in several categories on the Astros all-time leaderboard.

Martín Maldonado

Martín Maldonado reached AAA in 2009 and the major leagues in 2011.

Maldonado was picked by the Anaheim Angels in the 27th round of the 2004 amateur draft. He was signed by scout Arnold Cochran and hit .217/.277/.233 that year in his pro debut with the AZL Angels. In 2005, Martin batted .256/.278/.279 for the AZL Angels and was 8 for 32 with two walks and a homer for the Orem Owlz. The next season, Maldonado showed little progress at .222/.309/.288 for the AZL Angels.

Nori Aoki

Nori Aoki is a two-time Central League batting champion and current NPB lifetime batting champion who spent six seasons in Major League Baseball.

Aoki won the Tokyo Big Six University League batting title in the spring of 2002 and was a fourth-round pick of the Yakult Swallows in the 2003 NPB draft. In 2004, he led the minor Eastern League in batting average and OBP and saw limited time with Yakult, going 3 for 15 at the plate. Aoki became a regular with the Swallows in 2005 and had an amazing rookie campaign. He batted .344/.387/.417, became the second rookie to win a batting title, was third in the Central League with 29 steals, fourth with 100 runs scored and 7th in OBP. Aoki was a fairly two-dimensional player of speed and contact as he did not walk much or show real power.

All 74 Players

You can see all 74 players who played with both Houston and Kansas City on Baseball Reference. Good luck with your grid!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 26th, 2023 at 12:09 am and is filed under Immaculate Grid. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.