On Monday, November 2, Maikel García — 2026 World Baseball Classic MVP and Gold Glove third baseman for the Kansas City Royals — went after José ‘Cafecito’ Martínez on X with a blunt accusation: ‘He’s spent his whole career pretending to be humble on social media.’ This wasn’t a random outburst. Behind it are months of friction with the Tiburones de La Guaira front office, a devastating earthquake, and a former teammate who just joined the very coaching staff García wants nothing to do with.
What García Said — and What He Didn’t
The exchange started when a user brought up Cafecito in a thread and García fired back without hesitation: ‘Cafecito never won anything in the big leagues — hitting .300 here is like hitting .220 in the majors.’ When another user pushed back, saying ‘a Guaira guy never talks trash about another Guaira guy,’ García doubled down.
A couple of things worth clarifying. García’s claim that Cafecito ‘never won anything in the big leagues’ is only part of the story: the retired player had five MLB seasons and 16 in the LVBP — the first 12 with Tiburones before being traded to Tigres de Aragua. His MLB résumé is thin, sure, but his full career is a different conversation. As for the .300-equals-.220 comparison, that’s García’s personal take on the level of competition — not an official metric — and should be read as exactly that.
The Real Backstory: García, Tiburones, and the Man Who Came Back
This clash didn’t come out of nowhere. Since July 2026, García has been publicly at odds with the Tiburones front office. On the podcast Pura Bola (Season VI, Ep. 01), he said he wouldn’t play in Venezuela this season unless it was as a tribute to victims of the June 24 earthquake in La Guaira. His exact words: ‘I’m not playing for peanuts.’ Every one of those comments has been an implicit shot at team owner Wilmer Ruperti.
Cafecito, meanwhile, took the opposite path: he retired as an active player at the end of the 2025–26 season and was hired by Tiburones as assistant hitting coach under manager Fernando Tatis Sr. The same organization that once traded him away now has him back in the dugout. García is going after him publicly at the exact moment Cafecito became part of the institutional structure García is rejecting.
For context on where García’s bat stands: before the conflict escalated, he was slashing .348/.456/.480 with a .936 OPS in LVBP play for Tiburones. In his regular season with the Royals, he hit .268/.334/.381 in 82 games, limited by hand and hamstring injuries. The bat isn’t the issue — the environment is.
The Public Figure García Is Becoming
This isn’t his first rodeo. Back in July 2026, García had already publicly questioned the mentality of Venezuela’s national soccer team and called out footballer José ‘El Brujo’ Martínez — a completely different person from Cafecito, to be clear. The pattern is unmistakable: in the same year he became the best Venezuelan baseball player on the planet — WBC MVP, 2025 Gold Glove, and a 5-year, $57.5 million contract with the Royals — García decided he was done holding his tongue, regardless of who’s in the crosshairs.
The Guaira fan base is split. Some see a guy who isn’t afraid of anyone. Others think he’s out of line for going after a beloved figure in Venezuelan baseball.
García has confirmed he’ll be at the Choque de Gigantes on November 14–15 at loanDepot Park in Miami (Tiburones vs. Magallanes). Same field, same teammates — and Cafecito in the dugout. The next scene already has a date.
