2026 Team Previews: Kansas City Royals
A detailed fantasy baseball oriented team preview of the 2026 KC Royals
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Podcast
I did some catching up in this episode. I hit the highlights from the Royals, as well as the last two teams, which I didn’t do a podcast for - the Rangers and Giants.
Intro
I like the Royals. Something about the color blue, the middle of the country, the smaller market. It fits my style. I’d like to be a Royals fan, but I’ve tried, and it’s not possible.
They’re in a decent spot right now, I’d say. They’re a bit hesitant to really get into free agency and make a big addition or two to put them over the top, but it seems like now would be the time if they’re going to do that. Witt and Ragans are two of the best players in the league, Caglianone and Jensen could develop into stud hitters, and there are plenty of solid role players around.
So it’s a decent time to be a Royals fan. There are a lot of interesting storylines to watch. Let’s bust into the Royals preview. Remember, we’re focusing on the players we think will have standard league relevance in 2026.
Hitters
Bobby Witt Jr.
Age: 25
Pos: SS
Witt is pretty clearly the #3 player in fantasy this year behind Ohtani and Judge. This is coming off a “down year” where he hit just 23 homers.
The batting average PLUMMETED down to .297. That tells you something about how awesome that 2024 season was with 32-31-.332. The elusive 30-30-.300 season. It’s only been done ten times in 2010:
It’s not super hard to steal 30 bags in today’s game, but it is about as hard as it’s ever been to hit .300, and it’s pretty tough to clear 30 bombs playing 81 games in Kauffman Stadium. But I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see Witt Jr. pull that off another time or two in his career.
The strikeout rates have been under 20% in each of the last three years, the skills are off the charts, and we’ve got at least a handful of years left in this guy’s prime.
You could argue that he’s a tier behind Judge & Ohtani. He doesn’t have that 50-homer upside. But that’s about the only fair knock you can make on the guy.
One other point of note for Witt - he hit just one homer off lefties last year.
He saw a lot of right-handed pitching, so there weren’t too many opportunities against lefties. 79% of his trips to the plate were against righties; the league average for players who totaled 600+ plate appearances was 72%. For his career:
→ vs. RHP: 131 wRC+, .289/.341/.508
→ vs. LHP: 123 wRC+, .293/.334/.492
There’s been no split issues with Witt. He’s hit righties better than lefties historically. His homers vs. lefties in his career:
2025: 1 in 146 PA
2024: 4 in 143 PA
2023: 8 in 147 PA
2022: 6 in 148 PA
I don’t think this is anything other than a blip, a quirk, a piece of randomness, whatever you want to call it. If it were the case that his overall performance was bad against lefties last year, that would be something to worry about, but that’s not the case - the ball just didn’t fly over the fence more than once in that small sample.
In a redraft league with no keepers, I don’t think Witt ever falls past #3 in category leagues. In points leagues, I suppose there’s an argument for Juan Soto. Soto outscored Witt last year pretty handily. And even if you take away a lot of the steals from Soto (which you should) in your projection, he still has a big edge in taking walks. Soto has an 18% walk rate over the last two years, while Witt is at 8%, so you get a lot more of those free points. But Witt has outscored Soto in points per plate appearance every year but last. So I still think I’d go with Witt at #3.
Projection
634 PA, 101 R, 29 HR, 92 RBI, 26 SB, .292/.350/.528
Ranking
He goes to the top of the current ranks and will stay there for quite a while since the Yankees and Dodgers are two of the last teams we’ll get to.
Maikel Garcia
Age: 25
Pos: 3B
Garcia got rich this winter. He had a career-best season in 2025 and was rewarded with a big contract extension in December. That 2025 season:
→ 160 G, .287/353/.450, 16 HR, 23 SB, 12.6% K%, 9.3% BB%
All of that PLUS great third base defense. He’s a super valuable player, and shout out to him for getting the big contract. He finished as the #4 third baseman on the roto player rater with his across-the-board contributions.
The power was surprising. If we look at his big league history:
He had a 1% home run rate (HR/PA) prior to last year, and he took that 2.4% in 2025. A lot of that has to do with the four-point drop in strikeout rate. A 12.6% K% with a 9.3% BB% and 650+ plate appearances turns into a ton of volume on the batted ball side. Garcia was 9th in baseball with 519 balls in play last season.
He swung a bit less, made more contact, and raised the quality of contact while he was at it.
Ground balls have always been an “issue” for him, and you can see above that he cut almost five points off that last season, down to a sub-45% GB%. With his strong history of exit velos, it wasn’t a surprise that he had a bit of a power breakout while lifting the ball more frequently.
Can that continue next year? My projection model mostly thinks so. I have him for 15 homers in addition to 30 steals and a .261 batting average. That batting average projection looks low. He hit .287 last year with a .281 expectation.
I do think Garcia offers a strong floor. He’s a good player with no chance of losing playing time. The Royals certainly believe in him. I generally try to avoid drafting guys at career-high ADPs, which is what we’re doing here (by a lot), but the projection model is perfectly fine with it. I have him as the #3 third baseman in standard roto:
He’d be right there with Jazz Chisholm if Jazz wasn’t showing with a blank position on there, so we’ll have to get that fixed.
The ADP situation:
It depends a bit on if you need the steals around the 5th-7th round. If you’re loaded up in steals, you probably go to an Austin Riley type at 3B rather than him, but I can fully endorse the “buy high” on Maikel Garcia inside the top 100 ADP.
Projection
639 PA, 79 R, 15 HR, 71 RBI, 30 SB, .261/.324/.402
Ranking
Vinnie Pasquantino
Age: 28
Pos: 1B
Vinnie played his first full MLB season and hit a career-best 32 homers on a .795 OPS.
He’s been an elite contact bat with power in his career, but the home run rate hadn’t been great until last year, when he lifted that to 4.7%. Vinnie has always been one of the best guys in the league at consistently making hard contact. Last year, he went for a nice .275 xBA with a .345 xwOBA on a sub-16% K%.
That K% went up a little bit from past years, but it was well worth it for the extra homers. His GB% landed at 38%, and he hit a career-high with a 29.7% FB%.
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