How Bobby Witt Jr. became ‘Bobby Baseball’: Nine stories on the road to superstardom | The New York Times/The Athletic
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“Bobby is our version of Patrick Mahomes,” Picollo says. “That’s what he is.”
“Bobby is our version of Patrick Mahomes,” Picollo says. “That’s what he is.”
Spoiler!
1. On most nights, it feels like Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. can do anything.
Hit .489 in August? Check.
Finish second in the Home Run Derby while also being the fastest man in baseball? Check.
Carry the once-woebegone Kansas City Royals from 106 losses last year to the playoffs? Check.
To watch Witt bounce around a baseball field is to imagine unlimited potential and eye-popping stats. And when Witt popped out to Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto one night in late August, here was another example:
“He told me that was the first time he had ever popped out to the catcher,” Royals manager Matt Quatraro said. “I said: ‘Well, now you’ve done it, so you don’t have to do it again.’”
Thing is, it wasn’t actually true. Witt had already done it twice this year. But Quatraro didn’t question it. Bobby Witt Jr. never popping out to the catcher?
Sure.
2. To understand what Witt means to Kansas City, you can start with the raw numbers.
He led the league in batting average (.332) and hits (210). He ranked third among shortstops in Statcast’s Outs Above Average. He can hit a baseball harder than all but 11 players, and by Sprint Speed, he is still the fastest man in the league, a crown he has worn for the last three years.
It is a collection of skills so spellbinding and so complete that former Royals general manager Dayton Moore already believes Witt is the most talented player in club history, better than Carlos Beltran, Amos Otis or Salvador Perez, better even than Hall of Famer George Brett.
“By a little bit,” Moore says. “Not a lot. George was pretty damn good. But let’s face it. … There’s very few players in the history of the game that can help a team win in that many ways.”
Five years after being drafted second overall, Witt is the first player in MLB history to hit 20 homers and steal 20 bases in his first three seasons. He’s also the first ever with 200 hits, 100 runs, 40 doubles, 30 homers, 10 triples and 30 stolen bases in the same year. And he finished the year with 10.4 WAR, according to FanGraphs, just the seventh position player to do that this century. Were it not for the Yankees’ Aaron Judge — in the midst of his own celestial campaign — he would be a favorite for AL MVP.
Yes, Witt has been so good that Royals general manager J.J. Picollo does not hesitate to offer the greatest compliment an athlete in Kansas City can receive in 2024.
“Bobby is our version of Patrick Mahomes,” Picollo says. “That’s what he is.”
3. When Witt was 14, he attended a baseball camp for eighth graders at nearby Colleyville Heritage High School. On the first day, he received a test from a kid named Michael Stanford, a sophomore pitcher who was throwing batting practice.
“I’ll give you $25 if you hit a bomb,” Stanford said.
Witt could not yet drive, but his talent was a local legend. His father, Bobby Witt Sr., had pitched in the big leagues for 16 years. The University of Oklahoma had offered him a scholarship. Witt had three older sisters, and all three would marry men who reached the big leagues. Figuratively and literally, the family was married to the sport. “There’s a lot of players out there that love the game,” Bobby Sr. said. “But this kid, he’s just infatuated with it.”
As Witt stepped into the batter’s box, Stanford wanted to see if the hype was real.
“I kind of was messing with him a little bit,” Stanford says now.
Stanford tossed around 15 pitches. Witt blasted five or six over the fence. When the round was over, Witt didn’t say anything. He just walked out of the cage, looked back at Stanford, and flashed the “money” sign with his fingers.
4. One day back in May, Royals outfielder Garrett Hampson was trying to describe what it is like to watch Witt on a daily basis.
“He’s got a humble cockiness to him,” Hampson said.
A few moments later, he stopped. That didn’t sound right.
“I think I meant humble confidence.”
Hampson is not the first person to notice the contradiction at the heart of Witt, that he relishes the big moment but shrugs off cameras, that he can be so supremely in control on a baseball field, but his default setting is, well, courteous.
When Witt was a boy, his parents noticed that he was a bit of “an older soul.” He didn’t say much. But he usually found a way to connect. His father recalled the slogan of E.F. Hutton, a stock brokerage firm whose commercials were ubiquitous in the ’70s and ’80s.
When E.F. Hutton talks, people listen.
“He doesn’t say a lot,” Witt Sr. said. “But when he does, there’s a reason behind it.”
5. When Witt was a freshman at Colleyville, he took the varsity shortstop job from a senior named Connor Kreutil, an incumbent three-year starter.
Alan McDougal, the head coach, worried the decision might hurt feelings around the program. But after one practice of watching Witt, Kreutil found McDougal afterward.
“Can I go to second?” he asked.
Witt was more than a natural talent; he embraced the inconveniences that come with being a freshman. When a group of seniors gave him a ridiculous walk-up song — “Waterfalls,” by TLC — he opted to keep it the whole year. When Stanford and another upperclassman forced him to sleep on a hotel room couch during a road trip to Lubbock, Witt never complained when the extra bedding never arrived. He just pulled out his baseball pants and slept in his uniform.
“I loved watching him go about his day,” Stanford says. “Because he did it in such a manner where you knew he was having a good time. But you also knew that he knew that he was the s—.”
Once, Witt texted Stanford a video of him throwing a bullpen session and earnestly asked if he had any advice. Stanford thought that was funny.
“I’m like: ‘Dude, your dad was a big-league pitcher,’” Stanford says.
6. When the Royals drafted Witt second overall in 2019, it felt like a watershed moment. It had only been four years since Kansas City had won the World Series, but the team lost 100 games in 2018 and 2019. The long rebuild was on.
“We knew at that moment,” said assistant GM Lonnie Goldberg, “that we had a chance to turn this thing around.”
Witt zoomed through the minors and debuted with the Royals in 2022. He hit 20 homers and stole 30 bases, flashing his raw talent, but he wasn’t a finished product: He struggled defensively at shortstop. His on-base percentage was .294. The Royals lost 97 games.
When the season was over, Witt came to the front office. He wanted help with his defense.
“Where do I have to get better?” he asked.
The Royals showed him the internal metrics, listing his strengths and weaknesses. It created a roadmap. The biggest issue was his first-step reaction, and the biggest breakthrough came when the Royals showed him a camera angle from high above home plate and Witt could see his movements, and then work on his anticipation during batting practice. That was all he needed.
“He’s taken so much pride in, ‘Yeah, I’m athletic, but I want to be really good too and optimize my athleticism,’” Picollo said.
7. The same offseason, Witt called Brian Cain, a mental skills coach based in Arizona. He had first met Cain in Colleyville. A protege of Ken Ravizza, one of the pioneers of sports psychology, Cain had come to the high school and delivered a presentation on mental performance to McDougal’s baseball team. When it was over, Witt walked to the front, thanked Cain for his time and told him that the lesson would be beneficial to the players. When Witt left the room, Cain turned to McDougal:
“Is that your assistant coach?” he asked.
“No,” McDougal said. “That’s Bobby Witt Jr, sophomore.”
As part of Cain’s teaching, McDougal required each player to begin their day by calling the “Success Hotline,” a service started by a sports psychology professor at Montclair State in New Jersey. Cain told the players a story about the message that Cubs pitcher Jake Arrieta wrote on the bill of his cap: “ACE”.
It stood for “acting changes everything.”
Cain stressed that confidence was not a feeling. It was a choice. Looking for more, Witt started working full-time with Cain in 2023. He downloaded an app called HabitShare, where he keeps a checklist of behaviors. They range from making your bed, reading 10 pages, doing a cold plunge, or logging an entry in a journal. But the simplest routine was the one he started using before each at-bat.
Look at a spot on the barrel. Take a deep breath. Step into the box.
“The field,” Bobby Witt Sr. says, “is his happy place.”
8. If you’re looking for the turning point of Witt’s career, the moment he went from a super-skilled player to an outright superstar, it may have come last summer, on July 28, 2023, when Witt stepped to the plate against Minnesota closer Jhoan Duran in the bottom of the 10th.
With the count 3-2, Duran threw a 102 mph fastball that tailed at least two inches inside. Witt threw his hands forward, unleashing a swing that Twins manager Rocco Baldelli would call “close to impossible.” The baseball landed in the seats in left field.
“That’s where the legend grows,” Picollo said. “That’s where it starts.”
The swing illustrated a trait the Royals’ front office had witnessed for years: Witt possesses a gift for seeing, cataloging and adjusting. If Witt can see the flaw in a swing, he can fix it. If a pitcher throws two straight high fastballs, the second one is usually barreled. The skill led Paul Gibson, the Royals director of pitching performance, to craft the Witt Rule: If he sees five pitches in an at-bat, the battle is over.
“This is gonna sound weird,” Goldberg said, “but that’s the way we’ve always talked about him.”
In 2020, when COVID-19 wiped out the minor-league season, Witt spent the year in Kansas City at the Royals’ “alternate site.” One day, he faced off against former Mets pitcher Matt Harvey in an intrasquad game. Harvey kept hurling pitches. Witt kept competing. When the at-bat was over, the 20-year-old shortstop delivered a message to Harvey.
He was tipping pitches.
9. Witt does not crave the spotlight, but he lives for the big moment. He is batting .385 with runners in scoring position and .396 with men on base. He has been the propellant pushing Kansas City back to October.
And yet, his most valuable act may have come last year. As the season came to a close, Picollo and Royals owner John Sherman asked for a meeting to discuss a possible contract extension. The conversation was preliminary, but Witt made one thing clear:
“He was basically saying: ‘I know I’m going to make my money,’” Picollo said. “‘I want to be on a good team.’”
To understand the power of Bobby Witt Jr., consider what happened next: The Royals not only guaranteed him $288 million over 11 years; they also spent nearly $110 million in free agency, fortifying the starting rotation and rebuilding a roster that has rejuvenated baseball in Kansas City.
As October looms, the Royals are poised to reach the playoffs for the first time in nine years, and Witt will spend the decade in Kansas City, where the fans have come to call him the only name that conveys his do-everything game: Bobby Baseball.
“There’s something about him,” Picollo says. “I don’t think he wants the spotlight, but he enjoys it.”
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