Royals believe athletic Garcia can make impact in center field

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- When Maikel Garcia traveled to Kansas City this past offseason for a minor surgery that removed bone spurs from his right elbow, he sat down with Royals general manager J.J. Picollo to talk about what the vision was for Garcia’s role in 2025, his third year in the big leagues.

The major takeaway was that the Royals believed Garcia, an infielder who came up through the Minors as a shortstop but has primarily played third base with Kansas City, could be an option for them in center field.

“He smiled, his face kind of lit up,” Picollo said. “I don’t think that it’s because he doesn’t like playing third base, but he knows athletically, the middle of the field is where he needs to be.”

Garcia is open to the idea. His goal is to play as much as he can, and to do that, he knows he’ll have to hit better than he did in 2024, while also showing versatility after the Royals acquired Jonathan India, another right-handed bat who will play second base, third base and left field this season, likely taking some at-bats away from Garcia.

“I’m a shortstop and athletic,” Garcia said. “I think I can play any position except catcher. Now that we have India, there are two second basemen. I don’t think I’ll play a lot of second. I’ll be more third and center. But we’ll see what [manager Matt Quatraro] comes up with.”

Garcia played two Cactus League games in center field in 2023, but since his rookie season that year, Kansas City needed a third baseman and knew the 24-year-old could handle the hot corner.

Now with India, the Royals have been able to think about how best to maximize Garcia’s skillset as an athletic defensive asset.

“The more he’s in the middle of the field, the better off it is,” Picollo said. “The way our team’s set up, [Bobby Witt Jr. is] playing short, if [Michael Massey is] playing second, the next best spot to get [Garcia] is in center field.

“Last year, we had Garrett Hampson in that role, infield-outfield, and Maikel is a great in-house candidate to do it.”

Friday was Garcia’s spring debut in center field, playing five innings in a 6-1 loss to the D-backs at Salt River Fields. He played next to Massey in left field, another experiment the Royals are trying this spring to increase versatility with Massey and India, their two second basemen.

“That’s an outfield combination we haven’t seen at all,” starter Kris Bubic said after throwing two scoreless innings with four strikeouts. “The ball that [Lourdes] Gurriel Jr. smoked [in the bottom of the first], I thought that one was in the gap for sure, but I didn’t realize how deep Massey was playing. He got to that pretty quickly.”

Garcia got a few opportunities, one in the third inning when Jorge Barrosa tripled to the center-field wall on a ball that Garcia wasn’t playing deep on and had to chase down to throw to the cutoff man.

“I think as he gets more comfortable going full speed toward a wall, it’s probably something he can contest a little bit,” Quatraro said. “That’s usually one of the last things that come, being comfortable going against the wall.”

Garcia parked under Barrosa’s next fly ball in center for an out. And he also tried to track down Corbin Carroll’s home run off Sam Long in the fifth, telling Quatraro he got the tip of his glove on it as he jumped up the wall.

“Really learning about the timing of the ball,” Garcia said. “In the big leagues, hitters hit the ball hard and far. So figuring out how to read the ball and where to run is the biggest thing.”

The Royals still view Kyle Isbel, whose +9 outs above average last year were 12th-best among center fielders, as their everyday center fielder. Isbel made 119 starts in center in 2024, and the club especially wants him out there against right-handers. But Isbel will need days off, and offensive performance matters, too.

Adding Garcia to the mix of outfielders protects the Royals when a player inevitably goes through a slump or needs a day off.

“Maikel is one of, if not the best, baserunner we have, so we want him in the lineup,” Picollo said. “We want him impacting the game somehow. But because of the team’s needs, this was the time to see him in center. There are just a lot of things that we can do with him playing infield-outfield.”