It’s been season of highs and lows for Luis Garcia.
He took Max Scherzer deep at Citi Field at recently as Saturday, and became just the second player in Nationals history to post a six-hit game earlier this summer. His defense has also been noticeably better this year, and he’s already posted a career-high eight stolen bases.
But while Garcia’s been one of the tougher hitters in baseball to strike out (just 51 K’s in 406 plate appearances), he’s also seen his OPS dip 47 points from 2022 (.704 to .657), including a measly .577 over his last 22 games.
That led the Nationals to demote him to Triple-A Rochester following Wednesday’s walk-off victory over the Milwaukee Brewers.
And it might be exactly what the former Top-100 prospect needs to get back in his groove.
For those who may have forgotten, it was just last year that fans were pounding the table for Garcia to get a call-up to the big leagues. Why? Because he hit 8 home runs with a .308 average and an .885 OPS in 45 games at Rochester. For his career, Garcia has 21 homers and a .922 OPS in just 82 games at AAA.
And gaudy numbers aside, that’s perhaps part of why Garcia’s development has had such highs and lows. He’s already playing in his fourth big-league season at age 23, having been thrown into the mix in 2020 despite a .617 OPS at AA the year prior. The experience (specifically being around players like Juan Soto) clearly helped Garcia, as reflected in the difference between his AA and AAA performance. But in many ways he was still rushed while coming of age as a player on a team that’s been in a major transition basically since he arrived.
With the trade deadline come and gone, all the stars traded away, and the player development system largely overhauled (though still a work in progress), Garcia is now being given a chance to hit the reset button. The organization is in a significantly more stable place than it’s been in his entire big-league career, and he now has a chance to rediscover his swing in an environment where he’s had real success.
With names like Darren Baker, Trey Lipscomb, Jake Alu and newly-acquired Kevin Made all in the system at different levels, it’s certainly no lock that Garcia is the definitive “second baseman of the future.” But the demotion also shouldn’t be seen as a reason to rule that out by any means. We’ve seen what Garcia can be when he’s at his best, and his ceiling is at least as high as that of any other second base or “second base-ish” prospect the Nationals have.
Some time at AAA could be exactly what he needs.