Witt, Singer, Perez earn KC team honors

KANSAS CITY -- In the Witt household, MLB Network is always on somewhere. Bobby Witt Jr. and his dad, Bobby Witt, are always tuning in, always talking baseball. They always have baseball on their minds.

That can be a good and bad thing, according to Witt Jr.

“I got to take my time off baseball a little bit because if I’m watching it, I’m like, ‘Now I got to get in the cage, now I got to do this, do that,’ Witt Jr. said, laughing. “I’ll start thinking about, ‘What if I do this with my swing, what if I did this last year?’ My head just starts going like a hamster on a wheel.”

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Nearly six weeks after the Royals’ season ended, Witt Jr. is starting to get the itch to get back on the field, back to Surprise, Ariz., for Spring Training and back with his teammates to get ready for 2023. He spoke with local media Monday after winning the Les Milgram Player of the Year Award, one of the Royals’ three team awards announced Monday and voted on by the Kansas City chapter of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.

Brady Singer, who won the Bruce Rice Pitcher of the Year Award, echoed the sentiment. And there’s no doubt Salvador Perez, the Joe Burke Special Achievement Award winner, is in a gym getting ready for his 12th MLB season.

“I feel like the season just ended, but I know we’re eager to get back out there,” Singer said.

Witt Jr. is the fourth rookie to earn the club’s Player of the Year honor since it was established in 1971, following Bob Hamelin (1994), David DeJesus (2004) and Mike Aviles (’08). Witt Jr., who turned 22 years old in the middle of the season, became the youngest player in Royals history to make his Major League debut on Opening Day in 2022. He began the season with an incredible amount of hype surrounding his name, and he admitted sometimes that pressure got to him.

“Now I’m a big leaguer, now I need to help this team, do this and that -- help get back to where we want to be,” Witt Jr. said. “So I put a lot on myself, I push myself. I think that was a great thing for me to go through that failure time. It’ll better my career as a whole. This game is all failure, so you need to learn from it.”

By the end of the year, Witt Jr. led the team in games played (150), runs (82), hits (150), doubles (31), triples (six), RBI (80) and stolen bases (30). He ranked second in home runs with 20, trailing Perez’s 23.

Witt Jr.’s offseason is built around getting stronger, especially in his lower half, and improving on the little things that will make him more of an all-around player.

Singer, 26, took a massive leap in 2022, even though the season didn’t start the way he wanted it to. The right-hander began the season in the bullpen and was demoted to Triple-A with the hope of returning to the rotation. When he did, it was a massive turnaround.

Armed with an improved sinker, his lethal slider and more confidence in his changeup, Singer posted a 3.11 ERA in his 24 starts after returning to the Majors, with 144 strikeouts and just 34 walks in 147 2/3 innings. Including his three relief appearances at the beginning of the year, Singer finished the year 10-5 with a 3.23 ERA.

“I wasn’t happy, obviously, about what happened during the season, going down and being in the bullpen,” Singer said. “But I was happy to come out of that and not let that affect me, not let it drag me down. Just understand what their side of it is and try to do my best to get back up to the team and then from there, try to stay as consistent as I can.”

Singer has had a whirlwind of an offseason. He and his wife, Tori, got married earlier this month. Now he’s settling down and building out an offseason plan, with his focus on, once again, his changeup.

“I just want to use it in situations where, when something else isn’t working, I can go to that,” Singer said. “But I feel like I threw a lot of quality ones this year. I feel like the grip is right where I want it to be, so now it’s just breaking it down, getting a better feel for it, try to get some speed and spin off, as well.”