The Kansas City Royals were on the verge of making the playoffs last season, remaining there until the final week of the season, despite myriad injuries to the starting pitcher and underachieving hitters.
Things like this happen in baseball, not everything goes the way you want or plan for them to go. Last season the usual suspects, Bobby Witt Jr., Salvy, Vinnie, were all great. The bullpen was mostly outstanding.
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Players like Maikel Garcia and Kyle Isbel have made leaps and bounds. Taylor Clarke has had a surprisingly good year, considering his expectations going into the season. Steven Cruz was a revelation out of the bullpen before he got hurt. It was “role” players or “secondary” guys like this that helped the Royals to another winning baseball season.
There are plenty of candidates for the 2026 team who could fill that role as a surprise hero or big part of the team. Names like Jac Caglianone, Carter Jensen, Jonathan India immediately come to mind. Jac and Jensen are obviously still very young, so I don’t like to call them “role” players or “secondary” players, but the Royals are counting on these two to be important parts of the team this season, so I feel like they still fit into the category.
The point is, outside of the core cast of superstars that the Royals possess, who would you pick to have a big 2026 season?
