There’s no denying that the Kansas City Royals have a special talent leading their franchise into their contention era with Bobby Witt Jr.
But while the baseball world knows he’s one of the leagues brightest stars, where he ranks amongst the rest of MLB’s top talent is certainly up for debate depending on who or which fanbase you ask.
This week though, as the MLB Network completed their Top 100 players list for the 2026 season, for the second straight season Witt was ranked as the third best player in baseball behind the usual two top ranked suspects in the back-to-back MVPs in Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge.
And this was coming off a “down” year in which Witt followed up 10.5 fWAR season, with just an 8.0 fWAR season. A real travesty of an underperformance, I know.
The fact that MLB Network has now given Witt a podium finish two seasons in a row, could very well settle the debate on who the best player in baseball is beyond the two historic and generational freaks of nature in Ohtani and Judge.
It has to be Witt.
Bobby Witt Jr. dubbed as best player in MLB not named Ohtani or Judge, according to MLB Network
It’s hard to argue against a player like Ohtani with 50+ home run power who can also throw 100 mph on the mound. And the same goes for someone like Judge, a 60+ HR, triple crown threat who’s also disciplined enough to lead the league in OBP.
But someone has to be next and Royals fans have been screaming it at the top of their lungs for years now, Witt is that guy.
Putting Ohtani’s pitching stats aside, in the last two seasons, only Judge holds a higher fWAR than Witt Jr.’s 18.5 mark.
And among qualified hitters, his .311 AVG sits 2nd in MLB, his 395 hits lead all of baseball, his .370 OBP sits tied for 8th, his .545 SLG sits 4th, his 224 runs scored places him tied for 5th and his all encompassing 150 wRC+ also ranks 5th.
From a baserunning standpoint, few possess the speed that Witt does, as is 69 stolen bases were only bested by five speedsters in that same time span.
And defensively, he’s a back-to-back Gold Glove Award winner at the premium position of shortstop. This is in large part thanks to the type of defensive chops that that’s resulted in three straight seasons with 13 or more OAA, including an incredible league leading total (regardless of position) of 24 OAA in 2025.
Witt can truly do it all. He’s a rare true five-tool breed of athlete in arguably the most athletic and tooled-out era MLB has ever seen.
While he still has yet to capture that elusive MVP, the silverware is starting to accumulate and with it the consistent recognition of national outlets, confirming that if it’s not Ohtani or Judge, Witt has to be the next man up.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source kingsofkauffman.com ’
