Kansas City Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr entered the 2025 season with sky-high expectations. His 2024 season was one for the ages; he signed an 11-year, 288.7 million contract in February of 2024, then posted 10.5 fWAR, finishing second in AL MVP voting behind Aaron Judge. Witt firmly established himself among the upper echelon of all MLB players, and the hope for all Royals fans was that he would stay there.
Thankfully, Witt followed up his 2024 campaign with another impressive showing this season. While he didn’t quite reach the highs that he did at the plate in 2024, he was still the Royals best hitter this year. He also had his best season in the field yet, and had a bounce back season on the basepaths. He finished the year with 8.0 fWAR, a figure too high to be considered anything other than an excellent season, regardless of if it is a lower figure than 2024. He dropped all the way to fourth in AL MVP voting, the horror.
The shortstop was extremely consistent at the plate this year. His lowest OPS for a month was .779, while his highest month was .943. He never quite got “Bobby hot” this season like he did last year, he had a 1.353 OPS in July of 2024, but he was still the most consistent contributor to the offense this year.
The biggest source of his hitting drop off was his power. He hit nine less home runs and five less triples, with only two more doubles to show for it. Overall, Witt had an .087 drop in his slugging percentage. He also had less hits in 2025 compared to 2024, so his batting average dropped .037 points. His Baseball Savant page, while still very impressive, does reflect the drop off; slightly lower Hard-Hit%, Barrel%, fewer balls Squared Up. I’m not sure what adjustments Witt and the hitting staff will make with his approach at the plate, but I’m confident that the he won’t be satisfied with his still very good 2025, and will want to reach the supernova levels again that he reached the year before.
We’ve seen Witt really work on his defense since he first broke into the majors in 2022, and that work continued to pay dividends this season. Baseball Savant credited Witt with saving 20 runs above average, the fifth-highest value among all fielders and the highest value for any full-time infielder. Fangraphs sees Witt as the third most valuable defender in 2025, with the only two higher players being catchers. Witt was a very good defender in 2024, but this year he was among the elite.
The shortstop also had another excellent year on the basepaths, stealing 38 bases and doing a great job taking the extra base when he had the extra opportunity. His best highlight for this season came while running the bases, somehow avoiding this tag from Cal Raleigh:
I expect that we will see that highlight for years to come, it’s a remarkable feat of athleticism.
Witt was an ironman again this year, appearing in 157 games. He did miss a few games in early September with back spasms, but never went to the IL for the injury. It will be interesting to see if the back spasms that happened this season cause the Royals to sit Witt more a few more games in 2026. There’s no way to know if sitting more games earlier in the year would keep Witt healthier in September, but we do know that Maikel Garcia can easily slide over to shortstop and fill in every once in awhile. It’s great to have superstars like Witt and Salvador Perez who want to play everyday, but sometimes you have to save them from themselves.
Witt collected about as many accolades as you can get without winning the MVP. He won the Gold Glove Award and Silver Slugger award at shortstop. He was the AL Platinum Glove winner, which goes to the best defender in the league regardless of position. He was All-MLB First Team, an award that I remembered existed as I was scrolling Reddit. Witt also was awarded Les Milgram Player of the Year Award, the award for the best Royals player, for the fourth consecutive season.
It’s almost boring to write about Witt compared to some of the more flawed players. There’s not too much to analyze – he’s really good at everything, sometimes amazing at everything. He was like that last year, he was like that this year, and we expect him to be that good next year as well. I’m doing everything in my power to not take his greatness for granted, but it’s truly an active choice I’m making.
Witt is under contract for at least five more seasons before he has his first option to opt out after 2030. That feels like a long ways out, but life moves quickly and we will be discussing what to do with Witt and his opt outs soon enough. For now, I just want to appreciate the privilege that we have as Royals fans to watch Bobby Witt Jr play baseball everyday, and his 2025 campaign was another steallar season that we were able to witness.
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