{"id":848207,"date":"2026-11-07T23:30:19","date_gmt":"2026-11-07T23:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/848207\/"},"modified":"2026-11-07T23:30:19","modified_gmt":"2026-11-07T23:30:19","slug":"kansas-city-royals-news-bobby-witt-jr-wins-the-heart-and-hustle-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/848207\/","title":{"rendered":"Kansas City Royals news: Bobby Witt Jr. wins the Heart and Hustle Award"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup _1bij9g79 _1bij9g78 _1mt21p01\">Ward is another player who took a major step back in production after being traded and is the 67th-ranked free agent. Ward posted an 117 wRC+ in Baltimore, which fell to 23 with the Mariners after the trade. Even before his disastrous trade, Ward\u2019s power had evaporated. After hitting 36 home runs in 663 plate appearances in 2025 with the Angels, Ward hit only seven homers in 506 PAs with Baltimore (and at a more homer-friendly ballpark) and zero homers in Seattle.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup _1bij9g79 _1bij9g78 _1mt21p01\">Interestingly, despite his dip in home runs, his .336 wOBA in Baltimore was roughly the same as his .339 wOBA in 2025. This was largely due to his increase in walk rate from 11.3% to 16.3% and a decrease in strikeout rate from 26.4% to 20.4%. If Ward can combine his increased plate discipline with a revival of his power, he could be a valuable addition to the Royals, especially as a right-handed batter. He would likely also be willing to sign a one-year prove-it deal to increase his value, and the Royals could be beneficiaries of this opportunity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ward is another player who took a major step back in production after being traded and is the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":848208,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2387],"tags":[5,936,2123,55,35554,2596,2595,4,252,38557],"class_list":["post-848207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-kansas-city-royals","tag-baseball","tag-kansas","tag-kansas-city","tag-kansas-city-royals","tag-kansas-city-royals-news","tag-kansascity","tag-kansascityroyals","tag-mlb","tag-royals","tag-royals-rumblings"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117577765536353225","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=848207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848207\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/848208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=848207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=848207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=848207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}