This time last year, when the finalists were announced for the BBWAA end-of-season awards, Kansas City Royals superstar Bobby Witt Jr. was undoubtedly a finalist for the American League MVP award after a career season.
While he may have not been the same player this season as he was in 2024, there’s was still plenty of reason to think that he’d be among the finalists once again this year – even if it was just to finish third behind Aaron Judge and Cal Raleigh.
But after the BBWAA awards finalists were revealed on Monday, Judge and Raleigh were both unsurprisingly there, but Witt was nowhere to be seen.
In that third and final spot was his division rival José Ramírez, who isn’t underserving of praise, but doesn’t seem to be nearly as deserving of a finalist nod as Witt was.
Bobby Witt Jr. should’ve been among the AL MVP finalists again in 2025
As mentioned already, Witt already had a difficult task ahead of him entering the 2025 season if he was to repeat as the 10.5 fWAR player he was a year ago.
He no doubt missed matching those lofty expectations, but even in a down year, he was a still and 8.0 fWAR player. This placed Witt third in not only the American League, but all of baseball – trailing only Judge and Raleigh. (Technically he’d be fourth if you combine Ohtani’s hitting and pitching fWARs).
He still managed to put up a near .300 AVG, hitting .295, with a Top 15 OPS mark of .852 (15th in MLB) that was carried by a strong .501 SLG. He may not have been a 30-30 guy like he was last season, but he still managed to swipe 38 bags (tied for second most in the majors) and 23 homers is nothing to scoff at. Add to that a sub-20.0% strikeout rate of 18.2% and you have one of the more complete offensive season in the majors.
On top of his 130 wRC+ offensive side, there was the Gold Glove winning defensive side of his game this year that saw him lead the entire majors in OAA at 24, doing so at the premium position of shortstop.
Again, the argument here isn’t that Ramírez isn’t a worthy recipient of MVP love, it’s just hard to see how he was one of three most valuable players in the majors this season over Witt.
He may’ve had the slight edge offensively but was essentially on par with what Witt put up. His .283 AVG was 12 points lower, his .863 OPS was 11 points higher, he hit seven more homers, but also hit three less RBI.
He was better in terms of plate discipline, striking out 7.2% less than Witt and walking 2.7% more and he was also the speed king of the MLB as the only man steal over 40 bases – he swiped 44 bags.
But when all is said and done, Ramírez’s 133 wRC+ was only three points higher than Witt’s 130, placing him on essentially on an equal offensive playing field.
Then, when you take into account the defense Witt and his 24 OAA and 3 DRS and compare it to Ramírez’s 6 OAA and 0 DRS, there’s no questioning who the better defender is.
Perhaps it was some voter fatigue that was accelerated by Witt’s year-over-year decline, or perhaps the Guardians epic push to the postseason persuaded the voters to side with Ramírez over Witt.
But at the end of the day, if we’re talking about sheer value, it’s hard to see an 8.0 fWAR player like Witt and think he doesn’t have more value than a 6.3 fWAR player in Ramírez.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source kingsofkauffman.com ’
