Kansas City Royals fans shouldn’t ever get tired of hearing about how incredible Bobby Witt Jr. is.
By some incredible stroke of fortune, Witt was not the No. 1 pick in the 2019 Major League Baseball Draft. And because the Royals scooped him up at No. 2, they’ve been rewarded with as many individual accolades as pretty much any player could dream of achieving by their age-25 season.
Though 2025 was considered something of a “down year” for Witt in comparison to his otherworldly 2024 campaign, he’s still been adding to his trophy case at a rapid pace, and that trend continued on Thursday.
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Witt wins Heart and Hustle Award… again
The Major League Baseball Players’ Alumni Association announced Thursday that Witt won the league’s overall Heart and Hustle Award for the second straight season, making him the first back-to-back winner since Houston Astros star Craig Biggio in 2007.
“I just always want to try to play the game as hard as I can,” Witt said on MLB Network’s “Hot Stove” on Thursday. “It was instilled in me from my dad, so I’m just truly honored and blessed. Just going to keep trying to play hard each and every day.”
Per MLB.com, the award is given annually to the active player “who demonstrates a passion for the game of baseball and best embodies the values, spirit and traditions of the game.” After every team names its individual nominee, the overall winner is voted upon by a panel both active and former players.
Witt is a true five-tool player, and many of those tools wouldn’t show up the way they do on a daily basis if not for the 25-year-old’s consistent effort. He finished this season with a .295 batting average, 23 home runs, 38 stolen bases, and 24 outs above average on defense, which enabled him to win his first career Platinum Glove.
The Royals will rightfully feel as if they wasted one of Witt’s prime years, but the good news is that his effort won’t change in the slightest moving forward, and there are plenty of obvious improvements the team can make to compete for the playoffs in 2026.
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