KC chapter of BBWAA announces 2024 team awards

KANSAS CITY -- The Royals announced their team awards for 2024 on Monday, with shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. and pitchers Seth Lugo and Cole Ragans taking home honors.

Witt is the unanimous Les Milgram Player of the Year, an award named in honor of the late Kansas City businessman, community leader and Royals board member. Lugo was voted as the Bruce Rice Pitcher of the Year, named in honor of the late Kansas City-area sportscaster.

Ragans is the winner of this year’s Joe Burke Special Achievement Award, named in honor of the Royals Hall of Famer and former general manager and president. The award is given to a player who contributed beyond what was expected or someone voters felt deserved recognition for an outstanding season.

Awards were voted on by members of the Kansas City chapter of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.

“It’s an honor, any award you receive,” Witt said during a call with local media on Monday. “Especially with our team and how talented it is, you don’t really get these awards without those guys.

"I think it’s more motivation than anything. Once you get these awards, it makes you want to keep working toward the ultimate goal, which is the World Series, back in the playoffs, those things. And then these things just kind of come along with it. It’s pretty special to be able to achieve these.”

Witt has been named Royals Player of the Year in each of his three seasons in the Majors, including unanimous selections in 2023 and ‘24. He is the first to win this award in three consecutive seasons, and his three Player of the Year Awards are tied for second most with Amos Otis, Billy Butler, Eric Hosmer and Mike Sweeney. George Brett won the award, which was established in 1971, a club-record eight times.

The 24-year-old Witt led MLB this past season with 211 hits and a .332 batting average, becoming the Royals’ third batting champion, after Brett and Willie Wilson. Witt also became the first shortstop in Major League history with multiple 30-30 seasons; he finished 2024 with 32 home runs, 45 doubles, 11 triples and 31 stolen bases.

Witt ranked in the top 10 in on-base percentage (.389, sixth), slugging (.588, third) and fWAR (10.4, second). His 16 outs above average were second-best among all MLB shortstops, tied with Francisco Lindor and trailing only Dansby Swanson’s 18.

Witt played 161 regular-season games for the Royals, 160 of them at shortstop. He was an All-Star, a Gold Glover and a Silver Slugger for the first time, and he was named to the All-MLB First Team. The runner-up for the American League MVP Award, Witt was also named the overall winner of the MLBPAA Heart and Hustle Award.

It’s been a busy offseason for Witt with all the awards that came his way, as well as several baseball weddings (including his own) on the calendar. He said he’s had the itch to get back to baseball since the minute the Royals’ season ended, and the recognition of the success in 2024 -- individually and team-wide as Kansas City made its return to the postseason -- only adds fuel to his motivation.

“At points I even told people, 'I’m ready to get back with the team,'” he said. “Be back with those guys. Because you’re like, ‘All right, we got these awards, but we didn’t get to where we wanted to be.’ So you’re like, ‘All right, now what’s the next step of doing that? What do we got to do to get better?’”

With Witt leading the Royals on the field and at the plate, equally important to Kansas City’s success this year was the pitching, led by the rotation and the two starters atop it.

Lugo earned Royals Pitcher of the Year honors in his first season with the club after signing as a free agent a year ago. He was one of eight pitchers to make 33 starts in 2024, and his 206 2/3 innings ranked second-most in the Majors. He finished the year with 16 wins and a 3.00 ERA, the lowest by a Royals starter since Zack Greinke’s 2.16 ERA during his 2009 Cy Young-winning season.

“That guy was unbelievable,” Ragans said of Lugo. “I think everybody saw that and knew that the way he goes about it ... He’s got, what, nine different pitches? And he’s using all of them at different times. Talking to him in the dugout about the art of pitching … [and watching] how he went about his business, the way he studied hitters that we were about to face, it was incredible.”

An All-Star for the first time this year, Lugo finished as runner-up in AL Cy Young Award voting behind Detroit ace Tarik Skubal, was named to the All-MLB Second Team and won his first career Gold Glove.

• Lugo 2nd, Ragans 4th in AL Cy Young voting

It’s safe to say that voters leaned on the latter part of the Special Achievement Award criteria when honoring Ragans. The 26-year-old was named as both the Royals’ Opening Day starter and the Game 1 starter of their AL Wild Card Series against the Orioles, the Royals’ first postseason game since 2015.

Before finishing fourth on the Cy Young ballot, Ragans went 11-9 with a 3.14 ERA across 32 starts. His 223 strikeouts ranked second in the AL and were the third-most in a single season in Royals history, behind Dennis Leonard (244 in 1977) and Greinke (242 in ‘09). Ragans was just the fifth Royal to eclipse 200 strikeouts in a season, and the first left-hander to do so.

“My goal was just to give us a chance to win every game,” Ragans said. “I felt like it was a solid year. I did some really good things. I learned a lot about myself, about the art of pitching. We brought in some guys who have been around and done that, who have been in the playoffs. They knew how to get there. They’ve been around the game of baseball for 10-plus years. And we learned a lot from them.

“It was probably the most fun I’ve ever had playing baseball in my life. I looked forward to showing up to the field with those guys and competing with those guys and for those guys every single day.”