Losing Bobby Witt Jr. would be the worst thing for the Royals right now

The Kansas City Royals put a solid foot forward this weekend against the Minnesota Twins, coming out with a series win and keeping pace in the American League Wild Card picture.

While they obviously would have liked to have come out Sunday with a sweep, it was a positive weekend nonetheless. That being said, the excitement was unfortunately undercut by the uncertain status of the Royals’ franchise cornerstone in Bobby Witt Jr.

The superstar shortstop left Friday’s game early after experience back spasms and has yet to return to the field since.

While he hasn’t hit the injured list at this point in time, Royals fans will hope that his current ailments don’t come to that at all.

A stint on the IL for Bobby Witt Jr. would be the worst thing for the Royals right now

If the worst case scenario comes to reality and Witt ends up on the injured this list, it certainly wouldn’t be the first time the Royals have seen a substantial name hit the shelf.

Cole Ragans is only just gearing up for a return from the 60-day IL, Seth Lugo is back on the shelf for the second time, Jonathan India joins him on the short-term IL and Cy Young hopeful Kris Bubic was ruled out for the season shortly after the All-Star break.

All that to say, the Royals have been able to mitigate the damage of these losses with some adequate replacements thanks to some well-structured depth.

How do you replace someone like Witt though?

To make a long answer short, you can’t.

There is truly nobody in the game quite like Witt. He’s the pinnacle of shortstops in our game today on both sides of the ball. Simply put, he can change a game in more ways than one.

When you think of top positional performers of 2025 in the American League, the first names that likely come to mind are Aaron Judge and Cal Raleigh, and rightfully so. Both have the strongest cases to make for MVP honors this season and hold the top two postional fWARs in MLB at 7.7 and 7.4 respectively.

That being said, right at their heels is none other than Witt and his 6.9 fWAR, thanks to his tooled-out offensive profile and world class defense.

Has Witt been the same offensive force as he was last season when he finished runner-up in AL MVP voting? No.

However, he’s still been effective enough to be right in the conversation this season, even if he’s not at that historical pace.

Witt sits top five in baseball amongst all primary shortstops in wRC+ (5th at 129), OPS (2nd at .855), AVG (5th at .294), SLG (1st at .503) and stolen bases (2nd at 34). He also sits within the top 10 in OBP (8th at .352), HR (T-6th at 21) and RBI (T-6th at 77).

Then on the defensive side of the ball, putting positions aside, Witt is the co-leader in outs above average (OAA) – alongside St. Louis shortstop Masyn Winn – at 21.

And Kansas City has seen first-hand this past week just how game changing his talent can be, whether it was with scintillating, jaw-dropping defense or timely late-inning hitting like he displayed during the his last first full series against the Los Angeles earlier this week.

Players like Witt don’t grow on trees, so to find someone that can be a top five-caliber five-tool would be an impossible task for the Royals in such a crucial time of the season, with a potential spot in October still up for grabs but highly-contested.

According to a report after Saturday’s game from MLB.com’s Anne Rogers, the most recent set of MRIs on Witt came back negative for anything other than backs spasms.

“That’s what Royals were hoping to hear, now they’ll see how Witt feels tomorrow,” Rogers said in a tweet on Saturday.

Unfortunately though, “tomorrow” came and went and Witt was still nowhere to be seen in the lineup, leaving Royals fans worried that perhaps he may be suffering the same fate as his teammate Lugo, who was placed on the IL on Thursday with a lower back strain.

Witt’s next chance to rejoin the lineup will be tomorrow night in Cleveland when the Royals start a four-game set with their fellow Wild Card rivals in the Guardians.