The Royals have cut ties with Brandon Drury, ending a quiet stint that barely registered on the radar this season.
Drury, 34, spent most of 2026 in Triple-A Omaha after signing a minor league deal with Kansas City in February. The idea was simple enough: a low-risk addition who might turn into a useful piece later in the year.
That never really happened. He was released this week, and with the Royals now out of the race, the move fits where both sides are at.
At Omaha, Drury hit .226 across 212 at-bats and finished the season with a .715 OPS. That kind of production didn’t force the organization’s hand in any direction, and it left him free to look for another opportunity with a Major League club. He is eligible to sign elsewhere, though he would not be eligible to play in the postseason.
Drury’s appeal has always been tied to the kind of player he was at his peak. He owns 10 years of MLB experience and once looked like a dependable bat-first utility option. In 2022, he won his first and only Silver Slugger as a utility player and posted career highs in hits, home runs, and RBI.
There’s still some defensive value in his profile. Over the course of his career, Drury has played every position except center field and catcher. But he has never been known as a standout defender, so the glove is not the part of his game that would sell a team on adding him.
The reality is that Drury’s best big league work came earlier. In 2023 with the Los Angeles Angels, he hit 26 home runs, drove in 83 runs and finished with 2.7 fWAR. That season made him look like a sturdy bat-first utility man who still had plenty to offer.
Then came 2024, and the drop-off was brutal. In 323 at-bats, he slashed .169/.242/.228, landing among the least productive hitters in baseball. A hamstring injury early in the year may have played a part, but the bigger picture has been hard to ignore: he hasn’t looked like an MLB-level player in three years.
If Drury had somehow rediscovered the version of himself from 2023, he could have become one of Kansas City’s best offseason additions in years. Instead, his Royals chapter ends as a minor league gamble that never paid off.
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