St. Louis Cardinals: Adolis Garcia, AAA four-tool HR/RBI machine, is gone

For every 40-man roster ‘action,’ there is an equal and opposite ‘reaction.’ By signing pitcher Kwang-Hyun Kim, the St. Louis Cardinals needed to shed a player. Gone is outfield prospect Adolis Garcia, the organization-wide leader in HR, RBI and assists in 2019. Are we OK with this?

The St. Louis Cardinals sold Adolis Garcia to the Texas Rangers this past weekend to make room for newly-signed KBO pitcher Kwang-Hyun Kim. Although a shooting war is not likely to break out in Cardinal Nation over the head of Adolis Garcia to rival the one over the head of Alfredo Garcia, this deal means that fans will have one less outfielder to watch “shoot it out” in Spring Training for a job.

For as President of Baseball Operations John Mozeliak has promised, 2020 is all about “creating opportunities” for outfielders to emerge. The front office has implied they are confident that if they let the outfield prospects “play out” they will produce an heir-apparent to left fielder Marcell Ozuna, plus provide solid answers for center field and right field.

The front office has the problem of trying to replace Ozuna’s 29 home runs (and 89 RBIs). If he is not replaced, bleacher fans at Busch Stadium may be checking their phones more boldly in 2020, unconcerned with any incoming bombs.

Not even number-one prospect Dylan Carlson is thought of as a home-run hitter. Ridding the roster of the guy in your organization who hit home runs at the most prodigious rate, seems at first blush, to be cavalier.

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If popping the long-one is your style, Garcia’s 32 home runs at AAA this year is hard to beat. And if you prefer hitters who old-school drive in runs rather than just, say, have great exit velocity, his 96 RBIs in 491 at-bats was just one shy of Paul Goldschmidt‘s organization-leading 97, but in 100+ fewer at-bats than Goldy had.

Indeed Garcia was the leader in home run and RBI percentage for the entire Cardinal organization, all levels, in 2019. Of course, as the disclaimer goes, “past performance (at AAA) is no guarantee of future results (at MLB).”

He was also a great policeman, whether patrolling right, center, or left fields: he led the organization in assists with 17, in 117 games. That is, frankly, eye-popping. That is twice as many as anybody at Memphis or the big club. The entire Cardinals outfield only had 26 assists in 162 games. With only three errors on the season, Garcia was blossoming into a four-tool player (only missing average with his .253 mark).

Garcia was also a successful team leader, raising his batting average 16 points in the last month of the season, helping Memphis to a late-season surge where they won 13 of 15 at one point while going 21-6 in August. The Redbirds played down to the last weekend of the season, Labor Day, controlling their own destiny for a “three-peat” as PCL champions, eventually losing out to the Iowa Cubs.

As if all the above was not enough, he led Memphis in stolen bases. The letting go of Garcia for a song (undisclosed “cash considerations”) says as much about the Cardinals’ outfield surplus as about Garcia’s not insubstantial drawbacks as a hitter.

Even with the opportunity created by the apparent departure of Ozuna, a similar right-handed slugger to Garcia, the latter was still apparently going to be behind Dexter Fowler, Harrison Bader, Tyler O’Neill, Randy Arozarena, Jose Martinez, Lane Thomas, and Carlson, and the versatile Tommy Edman, on the outfield depth chart, with a majority of those capable of playing center field.

Holding back Garcia from being higher on the chart was his greater than 30 percent strikeout rate while walking in just over four percent of his plate appearances last year. Plus he will be 27-years old by Opening Day. Perhaps the Cardinals thought the formerly highly-touted Cuban had hit a plateau as a quad-A player?

Caveats. There is no fielding bible for AAA to put those 17 assists and three errors in perspective. It is hard to defend Garcia’s strikeout rate. The proverb goes, “Youth” – and not 27-year olds – “will be served.”

Nonetheless, it shouldn’t have been difficult to see the potential for at least a “late-bloomer, role player” story with Garcia. Like Jose Martinez, only with a gun for an arm. A free-swinger on the order of Mark Reynolds or Brandon Moss.

And were there not better candidates for a DFA: The blocked first-baseman Rangel Ravelo? Yairo Munoz? Look at this roster.

The logical DFA for adding a left-handed pitcher like Kim would be to release another lefty, like 33-year old Brett Cecil. Keeping Cecil afloat on the roster, despite his injuries and lack of productivity, smacks of the sunk-cost fallacy (Cecil is owed $7.25M for his final year with the Cardinals).

But the Cardinals could have played the sunk-cost game with Garcia as well. The Cardinals will have paid a $2.5m international signing bonus, described as “hefty” at the time, for only three years of minor-league work and 18 major-league at-bats from him.

Letting Garcia go for presumably not much more than the price of a box of rare Cuban cigars indicates that the Cardinals feel they have a bona fide outfield surplus. Which means even more trades from that pool could come. Let us hope that at least four of the seven outfielders on the depth chart pan out. Otherwise, they are going to feel they were hasty with the head of Adolis Garcia.