Texas Rangers: How Adolis Garcia started putting up MVP numbers
By Jack Lindsay
Adolis Garcia broke out in 2021 for the Texas Rangers hitting 31 HRs with 90 RBI in his rookie campaign. Garcia continued his momentum into 2022 with career-highs in AVG, OPS, RBI, and WAR among many others.
Despite great pop in his bat year-to-year Garcia was only 12% better than the league average player according to wRC+. This was likely due to his high strikeout rates where he was 3rd in the league in Ks (183) and 7th in K% (27.9%). The pop in his bat kept him afloat to make him a solid big leaguer but in order to next the next step forward he would need to get those numbers down.
In 2023, the results for the Texas Rangers Adolis Garcia speak for themselves
If one were to meander their way over to Garcia’s baseball savant page in 2022, they would see a lot of red on exit velo stats, hard hit, and xSLG. Scroll down a bit and his page becomes cold as ice. 12th percentile K%, 21st BB%, 8th Whiff%, and 9th in Chase%. All this is to say is that Garcia was ripping the ball all over the park but more often than not, he was swinging and missing. This handcuffed Garcia and gave skeptics, like myself, a reason to believe he would regress in 2023.
Instead, Garcia responded by making the right adjustments and it’s showing on the field. Garcia has subtracted his K% to 24.3% and upped his BB% from 6.1% to 8.5%. This difference may appear to be small by themselves but when you throw in AVG EV, Max EV, and a Barrel% all in the top-20 and an AL MVP candidate emerges.
YOU CAN’T STOP ADOLIS GARCIA pic.twitter.com/xyL2T65YEy
— Talkin’ Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) May 20, 2023
Garcia currently leads the MLB in RBI, the AL in HR and is second to teammate Marcus Semien in Runs. If he is able to continue trending in this direction and closing the gap between his K% and BB% there is a real argument for an MVP season being in Garcia’s future.
Can he keep it going?