Kansas City Royals news: Bobby Witt Jr. calls out baserunning in 2025

SB Nation

MLB.com’s Anne Rogers dives into the Kansas City Royals’ baserunning woes.

“As a team, we’ve got to have the confidence to run,” said Bobby Witt Jr., who swiped seven more bags than last year with a team-leading

38. “We’ve got to get back to Royals baseball. We’ve got to be the gritty team. We’re not going to hit a lot of home runs. But we do have to go out there and play fundamental baseball. Get the extra 90 when they give it to you. Go out there and be fearless. At times, I think we were a little fearful instead of being fearless.”

There’s so much that goes into baserunning that it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what went wrong. Witt stole more bases this year, but he still felt like he could have had more and pointed to several reasons why he didn’t, including that his on-base percentage dipped (.389 last year to .351 this year) and that he was limited by injuries at times.

Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe is reportedly “optimistic” that both the Royals and Kansas City Chiefs will stay in Missouri.

“I’ve had great meetings with the ownership groups. Obviously, there’s at least one county, potentially two counties, in the Kansas City area that are involved in that. And they understand what they need to do,” Kehoe said. “We have a new county executive in Jackson County. I’ve spoken with county executive-elect LeVota, and he’s very interested in making sure we do what we can to make sure the Chiefs stay a Missouri team, where they belong.”

Kansas State Senate President Ty Masterson is also expecting an updated proposal regarding the Royals in late November or early December.

The Minnesota Twins are reportedly interested in Royals third base coach Vance Wilson in their search for a new manager.

“Add Vance Wilson and Scott Servais to the list of managerial candidates as the Twins continue to search for a replacement for Rocco Baldelli, who was fired three weeks ago,” Neal wrote. Neal also reported that Wilson has interviewed for the San Francisco Giants’ managerial position. In addition to Servais, the former Seattle Mariners skipper, the Twins are known to have interest in at least four other candidates: James Rowson, Ramón Vázquez, Derek Shelton, and Nick Punto.

Fox Sports ranks the 2015 Royals as the 17th-best World Series winners of the 21st century.

This was a deep pitching staff that upgraded its weakest part, supported by a high-quality defense and a lineup that was going to be more productive than not. This was a better team than the 2014 edition, which also made it to the World Series — there was no fluke here, just a good plan seen through to the end. There were seeing-eye singles, sure, but hit by the kind of batters who were brought in for that sort of thing. They won the ALCS handily against the Blue Jays in six games before taking out the Mets in five in the World Series.

Royals first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino sits down with Kevin Wildes in his latest podcast episode.