With Jaime Garcia’s masterful performance over the weekend, I though it would be fun to go back to early 2010 before h broke into the majors and see what people were saying about him.
Baseball Prospectus (Kevin Goldstein):
Perfect World Projection: He’ll be a good ground-ball pitcher with third starter possibilities.
Baseball America (Derrick Goold):
The Future: The Cardinals want to fill a spot in their 2010 rotation from within, and Garcia is a leading candidate to do so. He left a favorable impression in a brief callup in 2008, and should make the club if he has a strong spring. He projects as a No. 3 starter.
Along with his solid repertoire, the southpaw is also an extreme ground-ball pitcher and that continued in ’09 as he posted a 62.4 GB% in 51.0 combined innings. At the very latest, Garcia should be helping out the Cardinals by mid-2010.
MinorLeagueBall (John Sickels):
Grade B-; I like him and the Tommy John recovery looks like it went well, but I hope they let him build up his stamina rather than pushing him too quickly.
It’s hard not to get excited about Garcia’s performance returning from Tommy John surgery. He showed no loss in velocity or the inconsistent command that generally plagues pitchers after this surgery. There’s little reason to think he can’t be a starter in the major leagues this year but the Cardinals will likely control his innings by starting him in AAA. -azruavatar
Reading through these writeups I’m left with a couple of takeaways:
- Everyone underestimated how healthy Garcia was and how cautious the Cardinals would be. While they shut Garcia down at the end of 2009 2010 he began the season with a long leash and neither he nor the team looked back.
- It’s possible that everyone was a touch conservative on Garcia’s upside. Garcia’s not a 2.70 ERA pitcher but with a FIP below 3.50 last year it’s entirely possible that he’s closer to a #2/#1 pitcher than he his a middle of the rotation kind of guy. I’d attribute that to some improved command — his breaking pitches are more consistent than they were in the minors — and an unexpectedly refined cutter. Garcia’s curveball and changeup have always been average or better pitches but his cutter has turned out to be much better than expected. I didn’t see the cut fastball in the minors as often as I did a slurvy breaking pitch or a curveball but he’s obviously brought an impressive repertoire to the big leagues.
Regardless of the reasons, Garcia has, to date, outperformed expectations. We can only hope he continues to do so in 2011.
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He looked like he was throwing a wiffleball yesterday.
Always a good thing. That down and in slider/cutter to right handers is a great pitch.
I wouldn’t say Garcia had a long leash. The team was very careful with taking him out after 5 or 6 innings or when he seemed to start to fatigue last year. The fact that he is showing a new pitch is actually very important IMO as it shows he is willing to listen to other pitchers and work at improving. I’ll take a young pitcher with good makeup and is willing to to listen and work over a young guy with a big arm than thinks he knows everything already. BTW not referencing anyone with the second comment just talking about how it’s so important for a young guy to be coachable and listen to people.
I love these posts. Seems like the best way to learn about how to evaluate players and predict their future is to focus on the ‘misses’, rather than the hits. Not to imply that everyone failed to see his potential, but it does seem that everyone failed to see his potentiall fully. Were there any indications before TJ that he had #1/#2 upside?
I went back through the whole Baseball Prospectus history, spread among about four or five writers, and the message was very consistent from year to year: this is a guy with solid #3 upside. They were also clear that they viewed that as an INCREDIBLY good return on a 22nd-round draft choice — which, never to be forgotten, is exactly what Jaime was.
Interesting trivium: no player drafted 680th overall and signed from that draft, as Jaime was, has ever had a career that generated as much WAR value as Jaime’s 2010 did. (Journeyman catcher Dan Wilson’s career was “worth” more, but although he was drafted in that slot in 1987, he didn’t actually sign with a major-league team until 1990, when he was a first-round choice.) Only five players since 1990 drafted in any slot at all in the 22nd round have accumulated more value. (I won’t name names, as there’s one on the list who would make Cardinals fans sick to their stomachs.)
A telling sign isn’t the innings, but the # pitches.
He through a complete game and only threw 105 pitches. Last year he would still throw 105 pitchies, but he would only be the end of the 3rd inning.
What was also amazing is that he had 9ks AND still only through 105. That is efficient.
Only strike out pitchers in the minors get the rankings. Its tougher to evaluate the Garcia’s.
It is not correct to say the team shut down Garcia at the end of 2009. He pitched at PB and SPFLD in July/Aug/Sep of 2009 and was the starter in the playoffs in which they went to the PCL finals.
FWIW, I had Garcia ranked ahead of Miller as my number one prospect going into 2010.
Whoops – I meant they shut him down in 2010. Lost track of my years.
Maybe they meant last year?
One of the reasons he has been better than expected though is the cutter you mention. I believe that was the pitch he developed during his rehab so no one had any way of knowing he really had it or would be effective with it.
The thing that’s amazing to me in hindsight is that they never admit the Cardinals’ system had more talent than they thought. I’m not saying the system should have been in the top 15, but if your #3 or #4 prospect has a 3-win season and 160+ innings of a 3.4 FIP, chances are you weren’t actually #29.
If Garcia were 6’4″ and 205lbs, I would be fantasizing about the possibilities on the horizon for his career in St. Louis for the next five or six seasons. But I look at that little frame, and those weird mechanics, and I see a guy that could be done in by injury, or be a reliever by the time he’s 28.
I really hope I’m wrong. I so truthfully hope I’m wrong.
If Jaime is a stud through his cost controlled years, it will give the organization a big lift. We have other high upside starters bubbling up through the system but they need time to develop and acclimate to the majors. Filling that void internally (as a #2-3 starter) is huge. To a lesser extent, McClellan holding down a backend of the rotation spot gives the organization a substantial lift also. In years past, we either overpaid for a guy like Suppan or Lohse or took fliers on retreads like Mike Maroth and Kip Wells. I pray those days are over. If Jaime gives us 5-6 strong seasons, I’ll be thrilled. Any thing after that is gravy.
Garcia is no little guy. He’s listed at 6’2 215.
I’ve also seen him described as, quote unquote, “portly’ in certain baseball publications and sites. I don’t see it; to me he has practically the perfect pitcher’s physique. But it certainly isn’t a “little frame” any way you cut it.
Yeah, I think his frame only looks little when he’s hanging out in the dugout with Carp and Waino.
He should stop hanging with those guys. ;o)
Garcia is 6-2, 215. That is by no means a little frame. Glavine was 6′ 175.
As I remember it was correct that he was called “portly” out of high school but quickly slimmed down as a pro. There was original concern that his weight would hinder his progress.
Garcia pitched exclusively in AA at age 20—and was *leading* the Texas League in K’s when he was shut down with elbow tenderness.
And this after succeeding across both A-ball levels as a 19-year-old.
So: young or very young for his leagues, and extreme strikeout/extreme groundball tendencies. In other words, Garcia always profiled as an ace, if he could stay healthy.
He was unanimously underrated by the mainstreamers because (1) low draft pick, (2) merely average fastball velocity, and, to a lesser extent, (3) Cardinal.
The consistent message from BP was partly #2 on your list, and partly another concern as #4: that between his body type and his maturity (no doubt about that), according to scouts, he “lacked projection.” They didn’t think he was going to get bigger and stronger, and indeed it is arguable whether he did so. They also thought he was already unusually good in his “approach” — setting batters up, changing speeds, using the count, etc. So he was, but there may have been some underestimation of how much he could still improve. Watching that game Sunday (such of it as I could), I was reminded of John Tudor in 1985, when it came to completely flummoxing batters by keeping them guessing (and guessing wrong). Praise for a left-handed starter doesn’t come any higher than that. Maybe half of this game really IS 90% mental…