Left-hander Jarlín García recently resumed throwing, reports MLBTR’s Steve Adams, but won’t be ready for the start of spring. He is expected to be game ready around May 1 and around six teams have shown some interest.
García, now 31, is coming off an entirely lost season. He signed a one-year deal with the Pirates, with a $2.5MM salary for 2023 and a $3.25MM club option for 2024, but he left a Spring Training game in early March due to some left arm tightness. He was shut down and later diagnosed with a nerve injury in the biceps area. He was placed on the 60-day injured list when the season began and wasn’t able to return at any point.
The Bucs naturally turned down that club option after the injury-marred campaign, but it’s understandable that clubs will be interested based on García’s previous work. From 2019 to 2022, with the Marlins and Giants, he made 188 appearances with good results. He tossed 202 2/3 innings in that time, allowing just 2.89 earned runs per nine. His 21.6% strikeout rate, 7.2% walk rate and 42.1% ground ball rate were all fairly close to league average.
Left-handed relief tends to always be in demand, so it’s understandable that those kinds of results would intrigue clubs. The 2023 season was obviously a frustrating one and it seems he’ll miss at least part of 2024 as well, but the fact that he has now resumed throwing is an encouraging sign of progress.
The relief market has picked up a bit of steam in recent weeks, with lefties like Josh Hader, Aroldis Chapman and Matt Moore having come off the board since mid-January. Southpaws like Wandy Peralta and Brad Hand are some of the more enticing options still on the open market, but García could be an interesting buy-low flier for a club if he’s able to put his injury behind him.
Could be a nice 2 year deal with some incentives to score some solid pitching
Would be a nice add for Cubs, if cheap enough
If he takes a one-year deal with a club option for 2025, I think Hoyer bites especially since he’s going to be cheap. This is right up Hoyer’s liking.
Hey the Reds could always used a fifth lefty in the pen (or an infielder for that matter). Serioulsy though, I wonder if he would take a split contract with the Reds?
They will have at least two full time lefties in the pen for the first time in as long as I can remember.
Wandy Peralta pitched 54 innings for the Yanks last year. His ERA+ was 154 but his FIP was 5.05 ! What bizarre metrics. Still, like Garcia and Hand, he tends to be a fair bit above average season to season .
I know, I know…let me guess: the Red Sox are “interested.” Full throttle. LOL.
The throttle is wide open, but now they’re dieseling
JARLIN???
This guy was lights out good for SFG in 2020 & 2021. Hope he gets back to form somewhere and has success.
Would be surprised if he gets more than a MiLB contract with an invite. He has a nerve issue in his pitching arm so why would any team waste guaranteed money on a pitcher with a significant enough arm issue to have force him to miss an entire season.
Pass. Bullpen guy who’s overperforming based on his xERA (4.28) & FRA (4.39) and a terrible K-BB% o 11.7% for his career? Lots of red flags. No thanks…
You sure do complain a lot about new school stuff, but then jump on the new cool thing to do in counting for advanced metrics. If he can get past his injury and prove to be healthy he can be a damn good bullpen arm. Advanced metrics are ridiculous and it makes players who have performed very well in search of a job because their advanced metrics said they aren’t that good but then that same team will replace that player who again has pitched very well with some guy who has great metrics but his results aren’t there. Id rather a guy like wandy peralta who has pitched 3 straight years with an under 3 era but shaky metrics than a pitcher with great metrics pitching to a 5-6 era.
@Braves_saints_celts
I’m giving my professional opinion on individuals posted here. Whether or not I’m right means nothing. As for advanced metrics, yes, some of it IS helpful when you put it into context but a lot of it is there for fluff and really has no big picture meaning to it. Most of the expected stats are pretty junk for the most part as is explained here:
community.fangraphs.com/properly-diving-into-expec…
If the guy is a starting pitcher, the numbers aren’t terrible for a #3/4/5 guy but he’s out of the pen. Add in his K-BB% being quite low and one should expect some regression to the mean.
In summary, I like to look at data that makes sense for evaluating pitchers. Teams interesting in this guy already know this.
or as autocorrect always defines him… Jar lid Garcia
Maybe posting a non-homerun trot picture would increase interest in Mr. Garcia
@stanton100…. Good eye! That’s a great comment, right there.
He is a cardinal kind of player they like injured players lol