{"id":2347560,"date":"2026-03-27T10:00:51","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T10:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2347560"},"modified":"2026-03-27T10:00:51","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T10:00:51","slug":"how-resolve-and-scouting-built-maikel-garcias-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/how-resolve-and-scouting-built-maikel-garcias-career\/","title":{"rendered":"How resolve and scouting built Maikel Garcia\u2019s career"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A few weeks ago, Team Venezuela\u2019s Maikel Garcia emerged as most valuable player of the World Baseball Classic<\/a> \u2014 a fine encore to his 2025 All-Star season with the Royals and a hopeful harbinger to the season ahead.<\/p>\n

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It would be \u201ca little strong,\u201d Royals general manager J.J. Picollo said in a phone interview, to say he wasn\u2019t surprised Garcia emerged as the WBC MVP. But the GM certainly wasn\u2019t shocked that Garcia played well, he added, because he \u201cloves those moments.\u201d<\/p>\n

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If that sounds like it\u2019s something you might take for granted, it\u2019s not.<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

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Back then, maybe the only thing measurably clear about the then-16-year-old\u2019s stature was his meager weight.<\/p>\n

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When longtime Royals executive Rene Francisco told me a few years ago that Garcia had been 127 pounds,<\/a> Garcia smiled and simply said \u201cone hundred twenty-eight.\u201d And when Picollo put it at 130 pounds last December after the Royals signed him to a contract extension, Garcia again smiled and said \u2026 128.<\/p>\n

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Unfavorably as that and other aspects of his circumstances might have projected for Garcia at the time, in hindsight it\u2019s easy to see why remembering that weight seems to be a point of pride now.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s part of what the Royals see as perhaps his most defining traits: a certain resolve, fire and fearlessness.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s very evident when he plays that\u2019s a part of who he is,\u201d Picollo said at the December announcement of Garcia\u2019s new five-year contract. \u201cWe can\u2019t teach that. We can\u2019t teach it at all, but he has it. He\u2019s had it since the day he was signed.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Certainly, it was apparent in how he came to be signed in the first place.<\/p>\n

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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\u2019s scouting director in Venezuela.<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

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But at 5-foot-11 and gaunt, Garcia auditioned in a T-shirt because he couldn\u2019t 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\u2019t even pull the ball let alone launch one.<\/p>\n

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The Royals, though, saw beyond the superficial.<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

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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 Acu\u00f1a Jr. \u2014 against whom Garcia and the Royals will open the season on Friday night in Atlanta. (They are related by the marriage of Garcia\u2019s mother to Acuna\u2019s father, Garcia told me in 2024, and also as cousins.)<\/p>\n

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But the Royals also signed him in 2016, for $30,000, because they sensed Garcia burned inside and was ever-undaunted \u2014 a through-line ever since.<\/p>\n

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When I asked Picollo in December to elaborate on why he calls Garcia fearless, he didn\u2019t hesitate.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThere\u2019s no moment too big for him; I mean, watch him play \u2026\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s an aggression that he has. There\u2019s an expression on his face that tells you he\u2019s competing. We want that. We try to identify it.<\/p>\n

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\u201cBut until they play and they meet adversity and they\u2019re struggling, you (don\u2019t know) if they really have it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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That makeup, and learning to temper it, helps explain Garcia\u2019s rise through the system. And it illuminates his rebound from a disappointing 2024 regular season \u2014 starting with a postseason in which he hit .318, followed by a resolute offseason that included revising his batting stance.<\/p>\n

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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).<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

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His ascent has served as a full-circle validation of both his own determination and the Royals\u2019 discerning eye on him.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s a tough job in Latin America, because we\u2019re watching players at 12 and 13 and 14 years old and trying to predict what they\u2019re going to look like at 25 \u2026\u201d Picollo said at the December news conference regarding Garcia\u2019s new five-year contract. \u201cSo when you look back on that, it\u2019s the way it\u2019s supposed to work \u2026 That\u2019s what this industry is about. That\u2019s what the Royals rely on.\u201d<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

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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\u2019ve struggled to get right for years.<\/p>\n

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\u201cMaikel,\u201d Picollo said this week, \u201clikes the lead-off spot.\u201d<\/p>\n

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In no small part because of something you can\u2019t teach that he\u2019s always had.<\/p>\n

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This story was originally published March 26, 2026 at 12:24 PM.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Related Stories from Kansas City Star<\/h5>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n
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Vahe Gregorian<\/a><\/p>\n

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The Kansas City Star<\/span><\/p>\n

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Vahe Gregorian has been a sports columnist for The Kansas City Star since 2013 after 25 years at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He has covered a wide spectrum of sports, including 10 Olympics. Vahe was an English major at the University of Pennsylvania and earned his master\u2019s degree at Mizzou. <\/span>\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.kansascity.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few weeks ago, Team Venezuela\u2019s Maikel Garcia emerged as most valuable player of the World Baseball Classic \u2014 a fine encore to his 2025 All-Star season with the Royals and a hopeful harbinger to the season ahead. It would be \u201ca little strong,\u201d Royals general manager J.J. Picollo said in a phone interview, to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2063884,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[43627,455470,313842,349137,400055],"class_list":["post-2347560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty","tag-kansas-city-royals","tag-la-sabana-venezuela","tag-maikel-garcia","tag-rising-star","tag-world-baseball-classic"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Kansas-City-Royals-can-expect-brighter-future-despite-2025.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2347560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2347560"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2347560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2347561,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2347560\/revisions\/2347561"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2063884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2347560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2347560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2347560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}