Bobby Witt Jr. is in control: How Team USA's leadoff man and Royals star has grown into one of baseball's best SURPRISE, Ariz. — Rarely does Royals infielder Michael Massey doubt Bobby Witt Jr.’s ability to make a play. The two are best friends, having come up together through the minors. Massey has seen the heroics long enough to expect them. There’s usually no reason to question it. A few seasons ago, though, was the one time he did. It was 2023. A midseason game. Witt chased a fly ball that Anthony Rizzo sent slicing toward the left-field line. Witt, calm as ever, never hesitated, tracking it in a way that seems exclusive to him, his athleticism always under control. The ball kept drifting. Witt kept running. Then he slid and made the grab. It looked easy. It wasn’t. “I mean, he almost caught it and ran into the left-field foul pole,” Massey said. “It was one of the most incredible things I’ve seen. And he made it look so natural as he was covering the ground. You’re just like, ‘Yeah, that’s not supposed to happen.’” Much of what Witt does isn’t supposed to happen on a baseball field. A quintessential five-tool talent, he carries the traits of an inner-circle Hall of Famer, even as his career is still being written—the type of player whose athleticism never outruns his control. Dayton Moore, the longtime Royals general manager who drafted Witt in 2019, once said the Gold Glove shortstop could just as easily have been a Gold Glove center fielder. “He’s one of those guys that could play anywhere on the field and do it well,” Moore said. “He’s the best player I’ve ever scouted.” That’s saying something considering Moore scouted the likes of Andruw and Chipper Jones during his time with the Braves early in his career.#world_baseball_classic #team_usa #bobby_witt_jr #royals #dayton_moore
