When it comes to the national perception of the Kansas City Royals, folks typically give shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. his due, but not Witt’s teammates.
That fact was unfortunately on display on Wednesday, when ESPN rolled out its Top 100 MLB Player rankings to kick off the new season. Witt was No. 3 behind Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge — right where he belongs. But Witt’s infield sidekick got a fairly raw deal.
Third baseman Maikel Garcia landed at No. 71 on ESPN’s list after his breakout season that included his first All-Star selection and Gold Glove. If Royals blindness exists, this was the most recent prime example.
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Garcia is far better than 71st-best player in MLB
In the site’s write-up for Garcia, Bradford Doolittle was generally complimentary of the 26-year-old, but couldn’t resist labeling him a “regression candidate.”
“A player who takes as much of a leap as Garcia did last season is invariably a regression candidate. In his case, because his breakout was based on an improvement of measurable skills, he stands a better chance than most to keep his value close to where it was in 2025. With a more efficient performance on the bases, he’ll maintain last season’s gains,” Doolittle wrote.
Garcia was two spots behind Royals teammate Cole Ragans, who also had reason to feel snubbed at No. 69. He was 10 spots behind new Chicago Cubs third baseman Alex Bregman, who he comfortably outperformed last season, and ESPN had him as the seventh-best third baseman in the league, despite tying for the positional lead in WAR with José Ramírez last year.
If you didn’t consume a hefty diet of Royals games last season, you might not know just how good Garcia truly was. He’d be a four-win player with a league-average bat because of his glove and speed, but instead, he posted a 128 OPS+, upping his slugging percentage by 127 points year over year.
Even if Garcia regresses to something like a 115 OPS+, he could still match his WAR total by getting his stolen base total back closer to the 37 he racked up in 2024, as opposed to 23 last year. He might also hit a handful more home runs due to the Kauffman Stadium fences being moved in.
It’s baseball, so nothing is guaranteed, but Garcia is in prime position to make ESPN’s experts look very foolish for this placement in a year’s time.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.si.com ’
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