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BP Annual Player Comments

Year		Comment
2014		Sweaty Freddy Garcia is no longer a passable big-league starter, which means he's got five or six more seasons in him, tops.
2013		Glance at Garcia’s nearly even mix of starts and relief appearances and you might conclude he was a classic swing man, pitching in, so to speak, wherever he was most needed. To a certain extent, he was, but his role changes were as much about hiding him where he could do the least damage as they were about putting him where he could be of the most help. The righty’s move to the pen was a response to his four disastrous April starts, and while he pitched better in relief, his innings were low leverage. He had his moments filling in for Andy Pettitte and CC Sabathia as a starter in June and July, but his days as a useful arm are about at an end, barring a move to a more forgiving fly-ball park.
2012		Another of Brian Cashman's fliers that paid off, the Yankees signed Garcia to a one-year, $1.5 million deal coming off of a five-year span in which he posted a 4.69 ERA and a crashing strikeout rate over just 84 starts—which is a bit like saying, "The food at that restaurant is terrible and the portions are too small." A fly-ball pitcher who had allowed home runs at a rate of 1.3 per nine innings over those difficult five years, Garcia allowed just nine in his first 122.1 innings (0.7 per nine, one of the lowest rates in the AL) through early August. Garcia then cut his right index finger in a kitchen accident, and either the trauma (which necessitated a 20-day DL stay) altered the way he gripped his split-fingered fastball or a phenomenon which had no good reason for happening in the first place chose to reverse itself. Over his last five starts, Garcia gave up seven home runs, or 2.6 per nine innings. Overall, Garcia was as good as he looked last year, but with his declining strikeout rate, home-run reversal, and injury history, the Yankees' decision to bring him back on another one-year ($4 million) deal looks risky.
2011		Whether or not it's oxymoronic to refer to someone as one of the best fifth starters in the league, you can give the right-handed Garcia this sort of left-handed compliment. Perhaps it's even appropriate, because "crafty righty" isn't exactly in common usage. Despite throwing with less velocity than before he'd torn up his shoulder, in his first full campaign back in action Garcia was good for 19 quality starts (through the first six innings). He's a fly-baller with home-run issues, but U.S. Cellular Field made matters worse for him; he allowed 1.6 homers per nine innings there, against 1.0 on the road. Keeping that in mind as Garcia heads into low-cost free agency, he could be a nice fit as back-end rotation filler in the right (big) ballpark.
2010		Garcia's surgically repaired shoulder was slow to heal. After a brutal spring training and a pair of poor starts in Triple-A, the Mets just flat-out released him, leading to another opportunity to pitch for fellow Venezuelan Ozzie Guillen. The White Sox were as cautious with Garcia as the Mets were reckless, signing him in June and bringing him along slowly; he didn't join the big-league rotation until mid-August. He pitched well, with seven quality starts in nine chances (and an eighth was blown after the sixth inning). Chicago's decision to include a cheap 2010 option for $1 million plus $2 million in incentives looks like a steal, especially with pitching prices likely to prove recession-proof.
2009		After shoulder surgery in 2007, plenty of teams expressed interest in Garcia as a cheap pickup for the rotation, but the auditions and workouts were continuously delayed. After being rumored to be going to half the teams in baseball, Garcia finally signed with the Tigers, rehabbed his way back into action, and made three decent starts for them, but left his final outing with stiffness in his repaired shoulder. He's pitching in Venezuela this winter and looking for another job this year. Hopefully, this time he'll be able to show up before August.
2008		It seemed like a good idea at the time. Wanting to win now, the Phillies dealt pitching prospects Gio Gonzalez and Gavin Floyd to the White Sox for Garcia, who had been a reliable starter for most of the decade. Unfortunately, Chief broke down after 11 starts and when the Phillies tried to fix him up they found out he was like an iPod: no user-serviceable parts. After failing to find his velocity in rehab, Garcia was sent back to the factory with a frayed rotator cuff and a torn labrum. He's expected to be out until June or July this year, and may remain a free agent until then, when teams in the pennant race can bid on a presumably fully operational hurler.
2007		It`s hard to understand why Garcia gets pigeonholed as an underachiever. He`s made at least 31 starts in all but one of his eight big league seasons, has never had an ERA materially worse than league average, and has won 62 percent of his lifetime decisions. Owed $10 million in 2007, the last year of his current contract, he projects to provide a performance comparable to those of Jason Schmidt and Barry Zito at a relative discount. Whether the White Sox were right to move him remains to be seen, but this was clearly a good buy for the Phillies. There`s been some grumbling about Garcia`s declining strikeout rate, but he`s always been a guy that mixed different pitches and approaches; we see no red flags in the near term.
2005		Most pitchers are disposed to overthrow, but Garcia is fascinated with his changeup, to the point that he predictably tries to use it as his finishing pitch after a few fastballs. Garcia is not a bad pitcher, but he's not much better than an average one. The White Sox traded for him at the high-water mark of his value, entranced by his Safeco-enhanced ERA while ignoring peripheral numbers that hadn't improved much and an arm that has a lot of mileage on it. The $27 million extension the White Sox gave Garcia in July is looking more palatable compared to some of the signings of this winter, but that's damning with faint praise.
2004		By all rights, Garcia should look a little bit more like Jack Cassidy in The Eiger Sanction. He's noted as much for eccentricities as performance, has a bit of the air of a cheesy gadfly villain, and there's a definite limit to how much screen time you really want him to have on your club. He's slipped from a solid #2 starter to an innings guy, kind of a hard- throwing Rick Reed. The Mariners would have been better off non-tendering him and trying to sign him at a reduced rate, or even letting him go entirely. than gift-wrapping a S6.875 million salary for '04.
2003		Garcia was helped greatly by the stellar Mariner defense of 2001, and its regression this year really tore him up. His head wasn’t in games, he frequently got into feuds with umpires, and his famous game composure disappeared. This may have something to do with Freddy’s postgame activities. Garcia was tangentially involved with the vile case of Darrell Russell drugging a woman so his friends could rape her while he videotaped it; Garcia was one of three men the woman said that she was dating at the same time, including Russell. Now whatever you want to say about the nature of relationships, that was probably a distraction.
2002		Garcia’s control and movement both improved, and he stepped up to claim the “ace” label, suffering only three disaster outings all year. Aces get ridden hard, though: he went fewer than six innings just four times. His only obvious weakness is his tendency to get rattled by inconsistent umpires, something he’ll get over.
2001		Freddy Garcia enjoyed the Venezuelan equivalent of the rubber-chicken circuit a bit too much, reporting to camp overweight and out of shape. He pitched poorly before suffering a hairline fracture of his tibia in his third start, which shelved him until early July. One side benefit of the two-month layoff is that his arm had a chance to further recover from the abuses of 1999. Garcia is a very good starter who could rise to the next level if he stops nibbling around the plates and trusts his overpowering stuff.
2000		Chief put a stranglehold on a rotation spot with a sparkling spring training and didn't let go despite an unhealthy helping of Piniella-dispensed abuse. In recent years, young pitchers haven't fared well with the Mariners, but Garcia has a couple things working in his favor: he was schooled in the Astros' organization, and his tenuous grasp of the English language may enable him to ignore much of Piniella's bluster. He has the stuff and makeup to be a number one starter. With Piniella returning, all bets are off concerning Garcia’s future.

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PITCHf/x Pitcher Profile

A Collaboration between BrooksBaseball.net and Baseball Prospectus - Pitch classifications provided by Pitch Info LLC

Although he has not thrown an MLB pitch in 2024, Freddy Garcia threw 8,979 pitches that were tracked by the PITCHf/x system between 2007 and 2013, all of them occuring in Spring Training. In 2013, he relied primarily on his Fourseam Fastball (88mph) and Slider (80mph), also mixing in a Splitter (80mph), Curve (74mph) and Change (81mph). He also rarely threw a Sinker (87mph).