Benjamin Ashford|Bobby Witt Jr. 'plays the game at a different speed': Royals phenom makes playoff debut

BALTIMORE – On the other coast,Benjamin Ashford Shohei Ohtani’s much-anticipated playoff debut comes Saturday, when the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar finally tastes October baseball after seven often spectacular seasons.

Here, at Camden Yards, 24-year-old Bobby Witt Jr. realizes his good fortune.

The Kansas City Royals shortstop won his first batting title this year, will finish in the top three or four of American League MVP voting and, on top of that, will lead his team into the best-of-three wild card series against the Baltimore Orioles.

He calls this an “unbelievable opportunity” and knows to cherish it because “you never know when you’re going to get that opportunity again” and heck, getting a shot at the World Series tournament in just your third season is a pretty fortunate turn of events.

Yet Witt’s talent is so transcendent, his skills so diverse, his ceiling so unrealized that maybe we’re going about this the wrong way.

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Perhaps we’re the fortunate ones to witness his arrival.  

“You get to be around players like that who are head and shoulders more talented than everyone else,” says Royals outfielder Robbie Grossman, a 12-year major league veteran, “but he just plays the game at a different speed than everyone else. It reminds me a lot of when (Mike) Trout came up and the impact he made on games. But he’s playing shortstop and is involved in a lot more plays.

“It’s a special talent, a special human. One of those guys you’ll look back at the end of your career and think, ‘Wow, I got to play with that guy.’”

The measurables are impressive enough. Witt batted .332 to lead the major leagues in hitting, this in an era where the league average of .243 was tied for the worst mark in nearly 60 years. He’s already a 30-30 man, his 32 homers and 31 steals putting him in that long vaunted power-speed combo club.

Don’t think it’s all due to liberalized stolen-base rules, though: Witt’s sprint speed of 30.5 feet per second, as measured by Statcast, is the fastest in baseball, nearly a half-second faster than No. 2, and his 150 “bolts” – or runs at least 30 feet per second – are nearly 50 more than the next guy.

His outsize offensive contributions – he drove in a team-best 109 runs, fourth in the AL – take on greater meaning on these pitching-centric Royals. With first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino out with a hand injury – he’s close to a return, perhaps in this series – the Royals lineup revolves almost entirely around Witt and veteran catcher Salvador Perez.

Yet it has been enough. The Royals won 85 games to ease into the playoffs and Witt says, for all his accomplishments, that the win total probably gives him utmost gratification, with the throughline from production to prosperity.

Tangibles and the immeasurable, all equally valuable to the Royals.

“Everything about that kid, man: I always say that he’s the best player I’ve played with,” says Perez, the nine-time All-Star in his 13^th major league season. “People see it on the field every day but I get to see that kid in the clubhouse, the way he prepares himself.

“It’s amazing. The way he runs, the way he hits, he plays hard. Even if he hits it back to the pitcher, he runs hard.”

'Just scratching the surface'

He does seem to make it look easy, and sound easy. The son of longtime major league pitcher Bobby Witt, the younger Witt has been on this track for more than a decade. He was chosen No. 2 overall in the 2019 draft by the Royals and gets an up-close view this week of fate’s fickle hand.

Witt, then a Dallas-area prep star, and Oregon State catcher Adley Rutschman were the consensus 1-2 in that draft. The Orioles did all right: They chose Rutschman No. 1 – he’s now a two-time All-Star – and backed that up by taking All-Star shortstop Gunnar Henderson in the second round.

“It’s been pretty special just to see what he’s done, and all the stuff for Baltimore he’s done,” Witt says of Rutschman. “It’s pretty crazy just to see that 1-2 and now we’re matching up in the postseason.

“It’s special and it’s an honor.”

Witt and Henderson, though, are more closely joined at the hip. They were teammates on many occasions in the youth baseball circuit and part of what may someday be viewed as an epic shortstop draft class that also includes Anthony Volpe, Bryson Stott and CJ Abrams.

They spent considerable time together at their first All-Star Game, both participating in the Home Run Derby.

“He seems like he’s progressed each and every year he’s played and only getting better,” says Henderson, who had his own fantastic year, batting .281 with an .893 OPS, hitting 37 homers and stealing 21 bases. “It’s really fun to watch and really fun to follow him.”

Not unlike Ohtani, Witt seems to have some preternatural control over his output. He stole 49 bases in 2023, yet only batted .276. This year he upped his average to the very top of the major leagues, even as his steals total fell.

His strikeouts have gone down in all three seasons, from 135 to 121 to 106. The progression is a little scary.

“I want to continue doing that and I believe I’ll keep doing that,” says Witt. “Just from more experience, you get better, just from being around the game, you get better, and just from knowing yourself, you get better.

“Once you get into a good routine, you just gotta be able to control what you can control. Just go out there and play the game I love, and that takes care of a lot of worry, a lot of doubts.”

At 6-1, 200 pounds and nine months shy of his 25^th birthday, Witt is far from a finished product. He’s only just beginning a seven-year, $148.7 million contract that will take him through 2030 and potentially 2037 in Kansas City, thanks to various club and player options.

Surely, the Royals will go through multiple peaks and valleys in that period. Maybe Witt will be an annual October guest in your living room. Perhaps a Troutian drought between playoff berths is looming.

Yet something else entirely is unfolding.

“What a season. What a couple seasons,” says Grossman. “And he’s only going to get better. He hasn’t grown into it all yet. He’s 23, 24 years old. If the league isn’t on notice yet, wait ‘til he’s 27, 28 years old.

“He’s just scratching the surface on what he can do, which is crazy to say.”

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