An appreciation of Bobby Witt Jr. and his month of July

The best all-around player in baseball has a monster month.

When Bobby Witt Jr. dug into the batter’s box on July 2, he was in the midst of an already exceptional season. At that moment (it was the Royals’ first game of the month, having an off-day on the first), Witt was hitting .312/.363/.534.

In his third at bat of the game, Witt crushed a home run. It was his 13th of the season and provided the lone run for the Royals in a 5-1 defeat at the hands of the Tampa Bay Rays. The home run set the table for a breathtaking run.

As we greet August, Witt is now hitting .349/.396/.596. I’ve stared at that previous sentence for at least five minutes, with the rest of this entry blank. I’m at a loss for words. Baseball isn’t supposed to be like this. In July, Witt broke the game.

Witt recorded exactly 100 plate appearances in July. He hit .489/.520/.833.

In one month, Witt added almost 100 points of OPS to his total. An absolutely absurd jump for this time of the season.

He recorded at least one hit in 22 of 23 games.

He tallied 16 extra-base hits.

He scored 26 runs and drove in 22.

He recorded 13 multi-hit games, including a stretch of four consecutive games where he collected three hits.

Amazing.

Remember how Witt started the second half of the season? Of course you do.

Talk about serving notice.

In the expansion era (which covers 1969 to the present day, in other words, since the Royals joined the league) a total of 24 players have recorded 100 plate appearances with a batting average north of .450 in a single month.

It’s possible I’ll lose my TrueSABR cred here, but I use batting average because it’s a fun way to measure what Witt did while tracking back over 50 years. Yes, it’s imperfect. Yes, offensive outputs have shifted and evolved myriad times since 1969. Still, look at some of those names. I count nine Hall of Famers.

When you spread it out to cover a stat like OPS+ which is a better measure of overall offensive production, it’s not as fun but that’s only because Witt isn’t a power threat like an Aaron Judge or Barry Bonds. Still, here are the top OPS+ numbers for hitters in a calendar month this year.

Ohtani. Judge. Harper. Betts. These are the best players in the game. It’s hardly surprising to see their names on this list. Add Bobby Witt Jr. while you’re at it. He absolutely belongs in this universe.

Witt served notice to a national audience mid-month when he participated in the Home Run Derby in Arlington. Witt advanced to the finals, missing hitting a tying home run by mere feet. Overall, he launched 50 out of the park. Oh yeah…he was also a first-time All-Star.

If you’re seeking an overall historical perspective, I don’t think I can break it down better than Kurtis Seabolt.

Again, some absolutely legendary company. That’s a good way to distill what Witt did with power and overall base hit production.

To only focus on Witt’s offense is to limit ourselves to his greatness and why would we do that? While he’s crushing baseballs and collecting hits, he’s also playing stellar defense.

This was from Tuesday’s game against the White Sox and it was the exclamation point to an exceptional finish, but really…were you surprised at this? Probably not. Yet just because this is almost routine doesn’t mean we still can’t be enthralled.

Do you have a favorite part of Witt’s game? Something that you look forward to on a daily basis when settling in to watch him play?

For me, it’s speed.

I could just watch GIFs like the one above on an endless loop. Give me a compilation of Witt going from first to third and I’ll be happy. Or just sliding into bases.

That first-to-home play earlier this week in Chicago? Jake Eisenberg has the details.

For a little bit of perspective, Usain Bolt holds the record for the men’s 100 meters with a time of 9.57 seconds. That’s around 328 feet. For Witt, going from first to home covers 270 or so feet. So he covered that distance in just over 10 seconds, yet he turned two corners while running. And as Eisenberg notes, it’s not even the fastest first-to-home time in Witt’s career.

I’m not saying Witt is at an Olympic level when it comes to a sprint. But I’d sure like to see how he fared against some of these other athletes.

If you were to ask me what was most surprising to me about Witt’s month of July, I think I’d immediately point to his stolen base total. Or lack thereof. Kind of wild that he swiped just two bags and that he only attempted four steals overall. If there’s one area of his game where he could improve, it would be on the stolen base front. And as I write that, yes, I realize how ridiculous that reads. But it’s true.

I’ll close with Witt’s percentiles from his page at Baseball Savant. So much red. So much greatness.

With Witt it’s not just about power. Or speed. Or defense. Or reaching base. Or driving in runs. Or coming through in the clutch. It’s about all of it. Everything. It’s about BASEBALL. Yes, all caps, bold, BASEBALL.

We are lucky we get to watch him play.