Maikel Garcia is the third baseman of the present and future for the Kansas City Royals. But how far ahead should that future expand?
Coming into the season, it wasn’t guaranteed that Garcia would last the full season in the Royals’ starting lineup. His 2024 campaign was a major disappointment, but in 2025, he’s been equally surprising, making consistent hard contact, playing lockdown defense, and even carrying Kansas City’s offense at times.
It’s only Garcia’s second full season in the league, so he’s under team control through 2030, though he’ll be eligible for arbitration as a “super two” player at the end of the year. Should the Royals look to lock him in even longer?
On Friday, Mike Gillespie of FanSided strongly urged the Royals to get an extension done for Garcia by the end of the year.
“Proving he’s the best third-sacker Kansas City has had since Mike Moustakas, (Garcia is) batting .299 with a nifty .362 OBP through Thursday, his 22 stolen bases are second only to Bobby Witt Jr.’s 34, his 12 homers already exceed by one the career total he brought into this season, and his 57 RBI are just one short of the career high he set last year, and he made the American League All-Star team in July,” wrote Gillespie.
“Garcia is well under team control — he can’t test free agency until after the 2029 season. But now, he’s proving that it’s his disappointing 2024 campaign, and not his stellar 2023 season, that’s an outlier. He’s definitely worth an early extension.”
It’s hard to honestly assess Garcia’s value and how much the Royals would be willing to pay him, but the number that keeps coming to mind is the seven-year, $80 million deal the San Diego Padres gave Jake Cronenworth heading into his first year of arbitration.
Garcia has one more year of team control than Cronenworth did at the time, but Cronenworth had two All-Star bids by then compared to Garcia’s one.
Maybe to adjust for inflation, let’s call it a seven-year, $90 million pact? Would Garcia sign on for that? Even if it takes a bit more, it’s worth considering if the Royals can finnesse it into their payroll.
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