Royals’ Bobby Witt Jr. might have ended argument on who’s baseball’s best defender

There’s no debating the fact that the Kansas City Royals have a world class defender on their hands in Bobby Witt Jr., as night in and night out the five-tool savant seems to show the baseball world why they need to pay attention to him on both sides of the ball.

On top of being one of the games most lethal hitters, statistically the superstar shortstop has long ranked as one of the best defenders in the game. But could he be the best defender in all of baseball full stop?

Well, Witt attempted to put that argument to bed on Tuesday night against the Los Angeles Angels, after making a jaw-dropping, highlight reel play at short that seemed nothing short of impossible and caught the attention of the entire baseball world.

Royals’ Bobby Witt Jr. makes incredible, highlight-reel play at shortstop

With the Angels starting the third inning strong with a runner on second, leadoff man Zach Neto stepped to the dish with a prime RBI chance in front of him. On a 2-1 offering from Michael Lorenzen, he seemed to ground one perfectly in the gap between third and short.

“Seemed to” is the key part of that phrase though, because against most infields, Neto may have had a chance to net an RBI with a base knock. But against a left-side of the infield that features a Gold Glove winning shortstop like Witt, that’s not always the case and it certainly wasn’t in this scenario.

Witt would make an all out sprawling play to snag the sharply hit high grounder, then somehow effortlessly get to his feet and throw an absolute missile of a throw onto Vinnie Pasquantino at first to get Neto in one of the best 6-3 groundouts you’ll ever see.

While this play could very well be the best play we’ve seen from Witt all season, it’s not the only unreal diving effort we’ve seen from him this week even. This was simply just another day at the office for the MVP-caliber superstar.

On Saturday, Witt managed to make an impressive diving stop against Tigers’ young star Kerry Carpenter in order retire him via a groundout.

These were just the two latest scintillating examples of why Witt makes an incredibly strong case to be considered MLB’s best overall defender.

And the stats more than back up this claim.

Of all qualified defenders regardless of position, Witt is the co-leader in outs above average (OAA) this season, alongside St. Louis’ Masyn Winn, at a whopping 21 with still a month left to play, placing him the league’s 100th percentile in range.

And this is just one example of the the defensive prowess he’s displayed in the past few seasons. In 2024 his 16 OAA placed him in the 99th percentile of MLB and in 2023 his 13 OAA ranked him within the 96th percentile.

Looking back to 2023, when he really came into his own as a defender, until now, no player holds more OAA than Witt does in that span. His 50 OAA comfortably ranks him atop the major league leaderboard, four ahead of Platinum Glove winner Andrés Giménez.

The fact he has both the stats and the highlight-reel worthy plays while playing a premium position make it hard to argue against the fact that the best defender in all of baseball may very well be occupying shortstop in Kansas City.