T&#8194;he other day, I was thumbing through Bill James&#8217; <em>Win Shares</em>, which came out in 2002, and lost about an hour perusing through the appendices, looking at the various teams&#8217; leader boards.</p><p>I love win shares, the statistic introduced in the book. I am a strong believer in win-based statistics. What is the Valhalla of sports statistics? Anything that tells me how many wins a player&#8217;s performance is worth.</p><p>Win shares doesn&#8217;t do exactly that and, full disclosure, the metric has its detractors. But as a statistic that expresses a player&#8217;s performance at the plate, on the mound, in the field and on the bases in a single integer, it&#8217;s one of the most useful and exciting of the many new statistics to come down the pike over the last few years.</p><p>Win shares may not be an argument settler but are a great jumping-off point for almost any baseball quarrel and often your debate is going to end up right back where win shares started.</p><p>The Royals&#8217; leader boards really tell the story of a franchise that has been floundering for a long, long time. Of the 12 best single-season performances in Royals&#8217; history, none has happened this decade. Mike Sweeney is the only 21st century Royal to crack the franchise&#8217;s career win-shares leader board.</p><p>Kansas Citian Satchel Paige might have warned us against looking back but, if you&#8217;re a Royals fan, you&#8217;ll be a lot happier if you do. Since the current season has become about as watchable as a Rob Schneider film, let&#8217;s thumb through a couple of these great seasons from Royals past.</p><p><strong><span class="subhead">George Brett, 1985 (37 win shares)</span></strong></p><p>One of the great Royals baseball debates is this: What was Brett&#8217;s best season, 1980 or 1985? Win shares hardly settles this issue &#8212; Brett posted 36 win shares in 1980, a season in which he played in only 117 games. As for 1985, Brett finished second in the AL MVP voting behind the Yankees&#8217; Don Mattingly. The voters got it wrong.</p><p><strong><span class="subhead">John Mayberry, 1975 (33)</span></strong></p><p>The Royals finished seven games behind the A&#8217;s in 1975, the best season in team history at the time. If they had been able to overtake Oakland, Mayberry might have won the MVP award that season. As it was, Big John was second in the voting behind Red Sox rookie Fred Lynn after posting 34 home runs, 106 RBIs and 119 walks. It&#8217;s a shame that Mayberry didn&#8217;t get a chance to be a part of the Royals&#8217; first World Series team in 1980. People forget just how good he was.</p><p><strong><span class="subhead">Darrell Porter, 1979 (31)</span></strong></p><p>Porter finished ninth in the MVP voting in 1979, logging the best offensive season by a catcher in Royals history. Porter hit .291 with 121 walks, had 10 triples, 20 homers, 112 RBIs and scored 101 runs. His name conjures a lot of things, but let&#8217;s not forget that with everything else, Porter was a heck of a player.</p><p><strong><span class="subhead">Amos Otis, 1973 (29)</span></strong></p><p>Otis&#8217; 1973 season was one of the first great individual campaigns in team history. He finished third in the AL MVP voting but second on his own team in win shares to Mayberry. If you ask a baseball fan who the best player in Royals history is, that fan will say &#8220;George Brett&#8221; without blinking an eye. That&#8217;s no doubt true. But if you ask that same fan who is second best, you might get several answers: Otis, Frank White, Willie Wilson, Hal McRae. According to win shares, it&#8217;s Otis by a good margin over the others.</p><p><strong><span class="subhead">Jose Offerman, 1998 (29)</span></strong></p><p>Really? Well, a .403 on-base percentage in 709 plate appearances, 101 runs scored, 45 stolen bases and a range factor at second base that was 14 percent better than the league average &#8212; Offerman really did have a great season.</p><p><hr class="infobox-hr-separator" /> <div class="infobox"> <strong><span class="infobox-head">ROYAL PERFORMANCES </span></strong><br /> Here are the Royals&#8217; single-season and career leaders in win shares, according to Bill James.</p><p><span style="line-height:0"><br clear="all" /></span><table border="0" class="story-table"> <tr class="story-table-even-row"><td align="left"><strong>Single-season</strong></td><td><strong>Year</strong></td><td><strong>WS</strong></td><td >&nbsp;</td><td colspan="2" align="right"><strong>Career win shares</strong></td></tr> <tr class="story-table-odd-row"><td align="left">George Brett</td><td>1985</td><td>37</td><td >&nbsp;</td><td align="left">George Brett</td><td>432</td></tr> <tr class="story-table-even-row"><td align="left">George Brett</td><td>1980</td><td>36</td><td >&nbsp;</td><td align="left">Amos Otis</td><td>284</td></tr> <tr class="story-table-odd-row"><td align="left">John Mayberry</td><td>1975</td><td>33</td><td >&nbsp;</td><td align="left">Willie Wilson</td><td>219</td></tr> <tr class="story-table-even-row"><td align="left">George Brett</td><td>1976</td><td>33</td><td >&nbsp;</td><td align="left">Hal McRae</td><td>214</td></tr> <tr class="story-table-odd-row"><td align="left">George Brett</td><td>1979</td><td>33</td><td >&nbsp;</td><td align="left">Frank White</td><td>211</td></tr> <tr class="story-table-even-row"><td align="left">John Mayberry</td><td>1973</td><td>31</td><td >&nbsp;</td><td align="left">Mike Sweeney</td><td>150</td></tr> <tr class="story-table-odd-row"><td align="left">Darrell Porter</td><td>1979</td><td>31</td><td >&nbsp;</td><td align="left">Dan Quisenberry</td><td>149</td></tr> <tr class="story-table-even-row"><td align="left">Willie Wilson</td><td>1980</td><td>31</td><td >&nbsp;</td><td align="left">Kevin Appier</td><td>149</td></tr> <tr class="story-table-odd-row"><td align="left">Amos Otis</td><td>1973</td><td>29</td><td >&nbsp;</td><td align="left">Mark Gubicza</td><td>141</td></tr> <tr class="story-table-even-row"><td align="left">George Brett</td><td>1977</td><td>29</td><td >&nbsp;</td><td align="left">Paul Splittorff</td><td>140</td></tr> <tr class="story-table-odd-row"><td align="left">Amos Otis</td><td>1978</td><td>29</td><td >&nbsp;</td><td align="left">John Mayberry</td><td>134</td></tr> <tr class="story-table-even-row"><td align="left">Jose Offerman</td><td>1998</td><td>29</td><td >&nbsp;</td><td align="left">Jeff Montgomery</td><td>134</td></tr> </table> </div>