Bobby Witt Jr. is on pace for a season that’s never happened before
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Bobby Witt Jr. leads MLB in fWAR and bWAR and leads the AL in hits.
- Witt projects to a 10.7 WAR season, best for a Royals position player.
- The Royals are 20-30, have lost nine of their last 10, and sit last in their division.
The best position player in baseball took an ever-so-quick glance at the runner, momentarily ignoring a ball traveling toward him at a high rate of speed.
After collecting the relay throw, Witt turned and fired to third base, all seemingly in one motion, and pegged out one of the fastest runners in the sport. And somewhere in the dugout, the manager reminded himself not to take it for granted.
Again.
The best position player in baseball — a title he holds at least for the moment — is known for far more prominent moments than relay throws, but that’s kind of the point.
Bobby Witt Jr. does everything.
He leads all Major League Baseball players in both Fangraphs WAR (fWAR) and Baseball Reference WAR (bWAR); he leads the American League in hits; he leads all AL players, regardless of position, in Statcast defensive fielding run value; he’s been clocked as the fastest player in the league; and he’s statistically one of the 10 best baserunners in the game.
You could call him the Patrick Mahomes of baseball — you know, if Mahomes also rushed the passer, kicked field goals and played kickoff coverage for the Chiefs.
Witt is an edge-of-your-seat player trapped in a let-your-game-do-the-talking personality — the kind of talent so rare that the general manager makes a point of halting all conversation when he steps to the plate, swipes a bag ... or makes the kind of relay throw he made Tuesday night, mentioned above, when he stopped speedy Boston leadoff man Jarren Duran from recording a triple.
The generational talent is the fun part.
Unfortunately, this is a two-part tale.
There’s his greatness.
And through 50 games of a Royals season, there’s the lack thereof in the collective performance around him.
Witt is pacing toward a historic, never-seen-it-before season — for all the right individual reasons, but for all the frustrating organizational reasons. He has accumulated a 3.3 bWAR this year, which leads MLB, yet after Red Sox swept them Wednesday inside Kauffman Stadium, the Royals dropped to 20-30.
They have lost nine of their last 10. They occupy last place in a bad division, tied there with the Tigers.
It is really hard for a team to be that underwhelming while employing a player that overwhelming. Witt is one of the reasons — the primary reason — the Royals had high expectations for the 2026 season. He is anything but the reason they’ve stumbled in the initial third of their schedule.
Witt is on pace for a 10.7 WAR season, which, if it comes to fruition, would be the best individual season for a position player in franchise history, and by a lot. He’d surpass his own mark of 9.6, set back in 2024. (George Brett, by the way, has five of the club’s top eight marks, and he was the last KC player to lead baseball in WAR some 40 years ago.)
If Witt finishes at 10.7, and the Royals don’t improve their last-place standing, it would be the best season ever for a player on a last-place team. Barry Bonds currently holds that distinction, a 9.7 WAR for the last-place Giants in 1996.
If Witt finishes at 10.7 and the Royals don’t improve their winning percentage (.400), he would post the best season ever for a team that won so few games. Ichiro Suzuki holds that mark with a 9.2 WAR in 2004 with the Mariners.
Heck, there are only two examples 10+ WAR seasons for under-.500 teams in the last two decades: Mike Trout in 2012, and Mike Trout once more in 2016.
That’s the fear, right?
Those Trout seasons were spectacular — and spectacularly disappointing. The Angels all but wasted those dominant seasons from their perennial All-Star.
Witt is having a truly remarkable year — the potential for top-five all-around production ever for a shortstop — and the Royals are a disappointment two months into the baseball calendar. He has made the bar much easier to clear, and yet they have stumbled under it.
These kinds of seasons don’t happen often. When they do, they typically propel teams to far greater things. In the last eight years (skipping over the COVID-shortened 2020 season), every team that employs the player leading baseball in WAR through May 21 has finished at least 15 games over .500 at the end of the season. Their average win total is 96.7. The Royals would need to go 68-44 (.607) to win 88, and they’d to go 76-36 (.679) to win 96.
It’s hard not to convert this into something more. The Royals have the gift of time — 112 games is a lot of baseball — but also shoulder the burden of finding a way to get better. That starts anywhere but Bobby Witt Jr.
They are 15th in baseball in starting rotation earned-run average (4.20), a year after they were seventh (3.80) and two years after they finished second (3.55). That’s basically with the same group, mind you. Cole Ragans is on the injured list, but he only made 13 starts in 2025, too. Kris Bubic is on the injured list, but he’s only missed one start to date.
They are 22nd in bullpen ERA (4.51), one year after they finished seventh (3.63).
The offense, meanwhile, returned all eight players who logged at least 210 plate appearances a year ago (although Jonathan India is out for the season). They also added outfielder Isaac Collins and gave more plate appearances to young prospects. And now they rank 27th in runs a year after finishing 26th.
In the end, this is all a reminder of where to source the vexation.
The Royals made additions but opted for tweaks more than overhauls, banking much of their season on internal improvement.
Remarkably, they received it from the players who spared the least room for improvement.
The others on which they banked? Those tickets haven’t cashed.