One of the oldest adages in baseball is that it’s a game of failure at the plate. Take shortstop Bobby Witt Jr., who won the batting crown this year with a .332 average. Even that means he “failed” more often than not. Yet no one would call Witt’s 2024 campaign a failure—in fact, he just succeeded more than most of his peers.
Witt is just one of thousands of batters from this past season, each with a single goal: keep the line moving and help their team win. How that happens varies, but for Kansas City, one role proved especially tough to fill in 2024: the leadoff spot.