Unowned

Deivi Garcia, P

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Scouting report

Any WAR-based analysis of pitching (including FV) is influenced by the innings total, and there are still questions about whether Garcia can handle something close to a 180-inning workload because he's only 5-foot-9 and 165 pounds, and the pandemic made it impossible for Garcia, or anyone like him, to answer those questions either way. I think it's fair to wonder simply because Garcia hasn't done it yet, but I'm more inclined to dismiss arguments focused on his size. I wrote last year that, because part of the formula for torque (which could theoretically be used as a measure of stress on the elbow) is the distance from the fulcrum, that longer-armed, usually taller pitchers might actually be more of an injury risk than a little guy like Deivi. But having watched Garcia go about his business at the big league level, I'm backpedaling his FV by a grade, since I think his power-pitcher's approach will make it tough for him to work as efficiently as he'll need to in order to log the aforementioned sort of innings total. Marcus Stroman sets great precedent for smaller pitchers like this, but while Garcia is really well-put together and athletic, he's not quite the elite-level on-mound athlete that Stroman is, and Stroman's stuff works in such a way that he gets one or two early-count grounders every inning, while Garcia just doesn't pitch like that. Instead, Garcia's tries to sneak 91-95 past hitters at the top of the zone. The angle and spin axis of his fastball helps it play up, but it isn't a plus pitch. His 12-6 curveball is beautiful, but can be easy to identify out of his hands because of its rainbow shape, so even though it has what I'd consider plus-plus depth, and plus spin, it also plays more in the 50/55 range. Garcia's changeup, which has about 12 mph of velocity separation from his fastball, is likely to become his most effective secondary weapon, and he already has great feel for locating it. His slider's shape is similar to his curveball's, just with more velocity. The entire repertoire is either average or a shade above it, and I think Garcia will end up working around 140 innings and generating 2-ish WAR annually. (Alternate site, MLB)