Former Kansas City Royals star Alex Gordon expecting ‘big things’ out of Bobby Witt Jr.
Perhaps nobody knows what it’s like to sit on the particular perch currently occupied by Bobby Witt Jr. as does former Kansas City Royals star Alex Gordon.
Witt, a 21-year-old five-tool shortstop and one of the most highly-regarded young players in the game, hasn’t played a moment in the majors. Yet his Royals debut will arguably be the most anticipated since Gordon’s in 2007.
The clamor from fans to see Witt began to build last spring training, and it’s only gotten louder as he has proved among the elite talents in the minors last year.
Now retired, Gordon offered high praise for Witt in an interview with The Star on Friday at Boulevard Brewing Company as Gordon promoted his Gordo’s Golden Ale beer.
“He’s done a great job,” Gordon said. “He has checked off all the boxes he has needed to to make it to the big leagues and start his (major-league) career. I think he’s right on track to do that this year. What I’ve liked about him is just how he carries himself. I remember during the shutdown, we had the Spring Training 2.0 and we were scrimmaging on the field and this 19-year-old, Bobby Witt, was the best player overall on both sides. How he carried himself, how he played, it was pretty remarkable to see.
“I don’t see any limitations on him as far as being a rookie or starting off slow or anything like that. … I’m expecting big things out of him. Like I said, he has checked off all the boxes and he looks the part so far.”
The Royals drafted Gordon No. 2 overall out of the University of Nebraska where he was the national college player of the year in 2005 as the major-league club was in the middle of the second of three consecutive 100-loss seasons.
Gordon performed so well so quickly in the minors that Baseball America ranked him the second-best prospect in the game in 2007.
He’d been dubbed the next George Brett and a savior by some in Kansas City. He received a standing ovation at Kauffman Stadium before his first at-bat in the majors.
The Royals selected Witt, the son of a former big-league pitcher, No. 2 overall out of Colleyville Heritage High School in Texas in 2019. He earned national high school player of the year honors that season while the Royals were in the second of back-to-back 100-loss seasons.
After less than 40 games at the rookie level in 2019 followed by a year at the alternate site and one full season in the minors, Witt has practically made himself a household name among Royals fans.
The Minor League Player of the Year in 2021, Witt has been a consensus top-three prospect in the eyes of top publications/website such as Baseball America, MLBPipeline.com, FanGraphs.com and ESPN.com.
Even former Royals stars and cornerstones of the 2015 World Series championship club Mike Moustakas and Eric Hosmer weren’t ranked quite as highly (both were Top 10) when they were tearing their way through the minors.
Witt will compete for a spot on the Opening Day roster this season, and the Royals may be hard-pressed to find reasons to keep him in the minors.
What words of advice would Gordon offer for Witt about handling the attention and expectations that will surely follow him to the majors?
“Just realize that this is a team game, and to succeed you’re going to need other players to be a part of it,” Gordon said. “It’s not going to just be Bobby Witt that turns the Royals season around. We’ve kind of struggled the last couple years, and there’s a lot of pieces to the team’s success.
“You already have the guys there in Whit [Merrifield] and Salvy [Perez], but you have all these young guys, especially young pitchers, coming up too to help him. It’s not going to be all about Bobby Witt. There’s a lot of guys that are involved, and I think that’s going to help him a lot. So just kind of lean on those guys. Lean on the veterans. Lean on the rookies. And just try to succeed together. I think he’ll be okay.”
Earlier this month during the Royals ongoing mini-camp at their facility in Arizona, Witt spoke about lessons he took from his first full season in the minors.
Witt said his early struggles in the opening weeks of last season were in part due to him trying to do too much. That experience reinforced the idea that he needed to rely on teammates instead of putting pressure on himself.
“You’ve got other guys that are going through the same thing,” Witt said. “Once they’ve got your back and you’ve got their back, you don’t really have to worry about it as much. … Knowing that you have guys that have got your back and knowing that everyone is just trying to win, whether it’s in Double-A, Triple-A or the big-league team, you know that you don’t have to worry about the failure as much because you know that those guys are competing for you as well.”
