After a breakout season, Kansas City Royals third baseman Maikel Garcia’s career is undoubtedly heading in the right direction.
The 25-year-old Garcia struggled mightily a season ago, leading to some doubt over whether he would stick as a long-term starter in the Kansas City lineup. But this season, he made the American League All-Star team, managed a career-high .800 OPS, and put up an impressive 5.8 wins above replacement.
Those sort of numbers tend to get a player wherever they want to go in their career. However, Garcia appears to be concerned over whether they’ll lead to his selection as a prominent member of his country’s national team at the upcoming World Baseball Classic.
Garcia is eligible to play for Team Venezuela, always a threat to make a deep run in the WBC. But on Thursday, he seemingly expressed doubt over the coaching staff/front office enabling him to play third base for the team.
X user Wilber Sánchez wrote a post on Thursday that seemingly claimed Team Venezuela wouldn’t choose Garcia to be its starting third baseman, even though he led all Venezuelan-born players in WAR this season. In response, Garcia quote-tweeted the post with a short, but pointed message.
They don’t like me https://t.co/tf41L4tZZR
— Maikel Garcia (@maikeljose06) October 9, 2025
“They don’t like me,” Garcia said.
The post had over 1,300 likes as of 6 p.m. ET on Thursday evening.
The other notable Venezuelan third baseman in the majors these days is Seattle Mariners slugger Eugenio Suárez, who hit 49 home runs this season, but is a significantly worse defender than Garcia at third base. In theory, there should be a lineup for Venezuela that makes use of Garcia’s glove at third and keeps Suárez’s bat in the lineup, either as a first baseman or designated hitter.
Roster decisions were not due until February at the last World Baseball Classic, and the event kicks off in March, so it will be a while until Garcia finds out his fate.
Garcia seems to be victory-lapping his breakout season on social media, and justifiably so. He posted, “They wanted the 11 to leave,” referring to his jersey number, at the end of September, and truthfully, there were plenty of people who thought Garcia didn’t deserve another chance to play every day after his .614 OPS a year ago.
Thankfully for the Royals, Garcia didn’t waver in himself, and he carried the team to a few more wins than they likely would have had otherwise.
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