Kansas City<\/a> will be selling at this year’s trade deadline, and even in a weaker American League, almost all hope is lost on making it back to the postseason.<\/p>\nAdvertisement<\/p>\n
Still, the Royals will not go into a full rebuild. Instead, they are heading toward a retool era, and the biggest reason why is because they have a superstar on their roster in shortstop Bobby Witt Jr.<\/p>\n
Witt is one of the most underrated players in the league and arguably the best all-around player in baseball. Defensively, he is not just a two-time Gold Glove winner but also a Platinum Glove recipient, making him the best defender at the most important position on the field.<\/p>\n
He is also an elite base-stealing threat, currently leading the American League with 29 steals while being caught just four times. At the plate, he has posted a .290 batting average, .362 on-base percentage, .832 OPS, 12 home runs and 36 RBIs. Overall, he has accumulated nearly five WAR and it is barely past the midpoint of the season.<\/p>\n
Witt’s excellence is being recognized across the league, and on Saturday all his hard work paid off in a major way.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
MLB announced the starters for this year’s All-Star Game, and for the first time in his career, Witt will be a starter. This marks his third straight selection, but his first two came as a reserve. The Royals celebrated the accomplishment on social media. “YOUR American League starting shortstop, Bobby Witt Jr.!” the Royals wrote on X.<\/p>\n\nWhile the season may not have gone the way Witt had hoped, it is still a meaningful moment for a player who continues to perform at an elite level regardless of what is happening around him. He gives Royals fans a reason to tune in every single night, and that matters even in a lost season.<\/p>\n
Witt is fortunately under contract through at least the 2030 season, so he will be in Kansas City for quite some time as the organization works to build a better group around him. His deal is also team-friendly, giving the organization some wiggle room to add more talent.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source sports.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Kansas City Royals are not having the season fans had hoped for. After making the playoffs in 2024 and falling just short in 2025, they have taken a massive step backwards in 2026. Entering Saturday’s game against the Philadelphia Phillies, they owned a 35-53 record. Without question, Kansas City will be selling at this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2489128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[359347,319690,91466,310650,43627,357712,22091],"class_list":["post-2489127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty","tag-american-league","tag-bobby-witt","tag-bobby-witt-jr","tag-kansas-city","tag-kansas-city-royals","tag-philadelphia-phillies","tag-the-royals"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Kansas-City-Royals-Make-Exciting-Bobby-Witt-Jr-Announcement.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2489127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2489127"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2489127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2489129,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2489127\/revisions\/2489129"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2489128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2489127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2489127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2489127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}