Bobby Witt Jr. headlines 2024 KC Royals team award winners. Here’s the full list
The Kansas City Royals recognized a few of their own on Monday.
Royals trio Bobby Witt Jr., Seth Lugo and Cole Ragans earned prestigious team awards as voted on by the KC Chapter of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA).
Witt was unanimously named the Les Milgram Player of the Year. It was his third time receiving the honor and his second unanimous selection.
“It’s just an honor, just any award you receive, especially with our team and how talented it is,” Witt said. “It’s just one of those things where you don’t really get these awards without those guys.”
Last season, Witt hit .332 with 32 homers and 109 RBIs.
There were several highlight moments. Witt led Major League Baseball with 211 hits and recorded another 30/30 season. He also received a Louisville Slugger Silver Slugger Award and was named a 2024 American League Rawlings Gold Glove recipient.
In November, Witt finished second in the AL MVP voting behind New York Yankees star Aaron Judge.
Witt is the first Royal to win the Les Milgram Player of the Year Award in three consecutive years. He is tied with former Royals Amos Otis, Billy Butler, Eric Hosmer and Mike Sweeney for second place all-time. George Brett owns the club record with eight Player of the Year titles.
Lugo headlined a resurgent starting rotation last season. As a result, he was named the Bruce Rice Pitcher of the Year.
Lugo went 16-9 with a 3.00 ERA in a career-high 33 starts. He recorded 181 strikeouts in 206 ⅔ innings and finished runner-up for the 2024 AL Cy Young Award.
“It’s well deserved,” Ragans said. “We got to watch him every fifth day and it’s unbelievable.”
The Royals relied on Lugo as a front-line ace. He turned in a career season that culminated with his first All-Star selection and a Gold Glove Award. Lugo also recorded the lowest ERA by a Royals starter since Zack Greinke in 2009.
Lastly, Ragans earned the Joe Burke Special Achievement Award. He went 11-9 with a 3.14 ERA in 32 starts and set career-highs in multiple categories.
Ragans also earned his first All-Star selection in 2024. He finished fourth in the AL Cy Young voting and was a finalist alongside Lugo for the Rawlings Gold Glove Award.
The Royals honored Ragans for the second consecutive year. In 2023, Ragans won the Bruce Rice Pitcher of the Year.
“It’s awesome,” Ragans said. “As a kid, you see all the Cy Young stuff come out and it’s really cool. It’s an unbelievable group of pitchers there, so it’s cool to be in the mix with those guys.”
Ragans was tabbed as the Game 1 starter in the AL Wild Card series against the Baltimore Orioles. He delivered in the biggest moments and ended with 223 strikeouts in 186 ⅓ innings. It was the third-highest strikeout total in Royals history behind Greinke (242) and Dennis Leonard (244).
Ragans credited Lugo for helping him develop as a pitcher. He appreciated the veteran leadership displayed by Lugo and fellow starter Michael Wacha. Both showed Ragans ways to be effective in specific counts and how to get outs with various pitches.
“The way (Lugo) went about his business and the way he studied the hitters he was about to face and stuff like that was incredible,” Ragans said.
Witt enjoyed watching the entire starting rotation. He expressed his gratitude for both Lugo and Ragans for spearheading the pitching staff at critical points in the season.
“Those two were unbelievable,” Witt said. “Just the list goes on and on from the whole starting rotation that we had. They were the reason why we were in the situation that we had. When we weren’t going well, they were going well. So we kind of picked each other up and that just shows the type of team we had.”
KC returns all three award winners next season. The trio will look to build upon a playoff run that ended in the AL Divisional Series against the Yankees.
“Our goal was to get to the playoffs and obviously, you know, our main goal is to win it all,” Ragans said. “And so when we ended, all of us had a little sour taste in our mouth. We know what it takes to get there and we know what it takes to win there. So it’s just build off of it.”
This story was originally published December 2, 2024 at 12:32 PM.
