Yeah, I´ve been seeing some people downplaying Sengoku for not being at GV(not on this site actually, but on like twitter and stuff)
It´s kind of fair to downplay him for MF, plot or not because that was his actions, but downplaying him for not being sent to GV is stupid. Its possible he was just at MHQ which is pretty far from the west blue. And either way, characters like Roger/WB don´t really see him as below Garp because he wasn´t present, implying he was fighting them in other contexts. At the end of the day, Garp did actually work for Sengoku, and when Sengoku felt like he was stepping out of line, he didn´t hesitate to stop him and put him on the ground.