Bobby Witt Jr. is awesome for sure, but he has a flaw in his game

The Kansas City Royals' young star shortstop, Bobby Witt Jr., is an exciting player who, over the last couple of seasons, has put up some incredible stats. This week, he was named to his first All-Star Game as a reserve after finishing second in voting to Gunnar Henderson. 

After a decent rookie season in 2022, when he finished fourth in the Rookie-of-the-Year voting, Witt exploded in 2023. He batted .276, hit 30 home runs, stole 49 bases and led the league with 11 triples. 

This season, he has been even better. He's second in the majors with a .324 batting average, has 15 home runs and ranks fifth in stolen bases (22), fourth in Wins Above Replacement (5.0), third in doubles (25) and second in triples (9). 

Witt also is tied for second in the league in being caught stealing; he led in that category last year. 

Witt is one of the fastest men in baseball. If you watch the Royals on a regular basis, you would see him leg out singles that should be outs, turn singles into doubles and doubles into triples. He blazes around the basepaths faster than most players have ever done it. Yet, he tends to get thrown out stealing — a lot. 

The issue started toward the end of 2023. He stole base number 48 on September 18 and with 10 games to go, he looked to be a lock to get to 50. Over those 10 games, he attempted to steal seven times and got caught six, finishing with 49 stolen bases, one short of getting 30 homers and 50 steals in a season.  

In 2024, he does have 22 steals, but he's also been caught nine times. For his career, he has swiped an impressive 101 bases in just two-and-a-half years, but he's been caught 31 times. His success rate is still 76.5%, which is still pretty good, but not great. 

On the other hand, fellow speedster Elly De La Cruz has 80 steals in 96 attempts (83.3%). Brice Turang has 55 steals in 64 attempts (85.9%). Jose Caballero has 50 steals in 62 attempts (80.6%). Esteury Ruiz has 73 steals on 92 tries (79.3%). Witt's teammate, Maikel Garcia, has 44 steals on 52 attempts (84.6%).

You get the picture. 

Maybe Witt gets bad jumps, or maybe he tips off when he is going to go. Regardless of why it is happening, he gets thrown out way too often for a player with his skillset. This is one part of his game he will need to improve on going forward. 

Of course, this is nitpicking at its finest. Witt is a generational talent, and if the worst that can be said about his game is that he gets thrown out stealing a quarter of the time, he's still going to be a superstar for the Royals.