A few weeks ago, Team Venezuela’s Maikel Garcia emerged as most valuable player of the World Baseball Classic — a fine encore to his 2025 All-Star season with the Royals and a hopeful harbinger to the season ahead.
It would be “a little strong,” Royals general manager J.J. Picollo said in a phone interview, to say he wasn’t surprised Garcia emerged as the WBC MVP. But the GM certainly wasn’t shocked that Garcia played well, he added, because he “loves those moments.”
If that sounds like it’s something you might take for granted, it’s not.
And it speaks to why Garcia has become who he is, a pillar of the Royals, despite a future in baseball that was somewhere between improbable and unfathomable a decade ago.
Back then, maybe the only thing measurably clear about the then-16-year-old’s stature was his meager weight.
When longtime Royals executive Rene Francisco told me a few years ago that Garcia had been 127 pounds, Garcia smiled and simply said “one hundred twenty-eight.” And when Picollo put it at 130 pounds last December after the Royals signed him to a contract extension, Garcia again smiled and said … 128.
Unfavorably as that and other aspects of his circumstances might have projected for Garcia at the time, in hindsight it’s easy to see why remembering that weight seems to be a point of pride now.
It’s part of what the Royals see as perhaps his most defining traits: a certain resolve, fire and fearlessness.
“It’s very evident when he plays that’s a part of who he is,” Picollo said at the December announcement of Garcia’s new five-year contract. “We can’t teach that. We can’t teach it at all, but he has it. He’s had it since the day he was signed.”
Certainly, it was apparent in how he came to be signed in the first place.
On a suggestion from then-Royals shortstop Alcides Escobar that he had a 16-year-old cousin worth checking out back in his hometown of La Sabana, Venezuela, Francisco called Richard Castro, the club’s scouting director in Venezuela.
Castro knew of Garcia and liked his prospects, which was enough for Garcia to be invited to a weeklong group tryout at the Royals Academy in the Dominican Republic.
But at 5-foot-11 and gaunt, Garcia auditioned in a T-shirt because he couldn’t move in a jersey without becoming snarled in it. He ran the 60-yard dash about a full second below what Francisco considered average speed, and he couldn’t even pull the ball let alone launch one.
The Royals, though, saw beyond the superficial.
They liked his instincts and his footwork. They noticed his feel for the strike zone and how frequently he put the bat barrel on the ball.
While no other club showed interest in him, the Royals believed he could gain strength and grow into a frame that would animate that potential. They reckoned it boded well that he had several extended family members who played in MLB, including Escobar and, later, Atlanta Braves star Ronald Acuña Jr. — against whom Garcia and the Royals will open the season on Friday night in Atlanta. (They are related by the marriage of Garcia’s mother to Acuna’s father, Garcia told me in 2024, and also as cousins.)
But the Royals also signed him in 2016, for $30,000, because they sensed Garcia burned inside and was ever-undaunted — a through-line ever since.
When I asked Picollo in December to elaborate on why he calls Garcia fearless, he didn’t hesitate.
“There’s no moment too big for him; I mean, watch him play …” he said. “There’s an aggression that he has. There’s an expression on his face that tells you he’s competing. We want that. We try to identify it.
“But until they play and they meet adversity and they’re struggling, you (don’t know) if they really have it.”
That makeup, and learning to temper it, helps explain Garcia’s rise through the system. And it illuminates his rebound from a disappointing 2024 regular season — starting with a postseason in which he hit .318, followed by a resolute offseason that included revising his batting stance.
Next thing you know, Garcia in 2025 made the American League All-Star team, earned a Gold Glove, hit 16 home runs with 74 RBIs and earned a 5.8 WAR (wins above replacement).
That made his contract extension vital. And now, paired with superstar shortstop Bobby Witt Jr., the Royals appear to have a formidable left side of the infield for years to come.
His ascent has served as a full-circle validation of both his own determination and the Royals’ discerning eye on him.
“It’s a tough job in Latin America, because we’re watching players at 12 and 13 and 14 years old and trying to predict what they’re going to look like at 25 …” Picollo said at the December news conference regarding Garcia’s new five-year contract. “So when you look back on that, it’s the way it’s supposed to work … That’s what this industry is about. That’s what the Royals rely on.”
Now they expect to rely on him at the top of the order, where in 22 games started last season he hit .341 with a .404 on-base percentage and OPS of .880.
If he can flourish in a more frequent role there than last season, and perform better than he did in 101 starts there in 2024 (.234/.280/.343 slash line), the Royals will have a jumpstart instead of a void in a slot they’ve struggled to get right for years.
“Maikel,” Picollo said this week, “likes the lead-off spot.”
In no small part because of something you can’t teach that he’s always had.
This story was originally published March 26, 2026 at 12:24 PM.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.kansascity.com ’
