Adolis Garcia seemingly came out of nowhere to hit 31 home runs for the Texas Rangers in 2021. He’s since become a key cog in the Rangers lineup and was named the ALCS MVP after taking down the Houston Astros.
Former Texas Rangers general manager Jon Daniels detailed how the club identified Garcia as a trade target on the Audacy original podcast “Baseball Isn’t Boring” this week.
“What comes to my mind is you got to be both lucky and good with some of those things,” Daniels said. “The good part is we identified him as a talent that you don’t typically see DFA’d.”
Daniels mentioned that Garcia had a unique background of being a Cuban player that was a little bit older as he went through the process. He went to Japan for a bit, then the Cardinals signed him, but they couldn’t keep him on the 40-man roster.
“They had so many outfielders he was a little bit blocked,” he continued. “They needed a 40-man spot so we got him for cash.”
A couple of Rangers scouts had seen Garcia and liked his tools, but they knew that his strikeout rate was a big question mark. Daniels credited assistant GM Ross Fenstermaker with pushing for Garcia along with a number of guys in the pro scouting department.
“It was one of those deals where we weren’t a championship club yet,” Daniels said. “We had spots to burn, so to speak, and it was like ‘Hey, this is the kind of talent, the upside you take a chance on.’ That’s the part where we’re good.
“The part where we’re lucky is we ended up taking him off the roster a couple months later that winter right before spring training to clear space for somebody else. He cleared waivers. So we retained him because he hadn’t had a prior outright and then he killed it that month. Ronald Guzman, I think, busted his knee playing the outfield and Adolis came up and never really went back down.”
Daniels noted that taking a chance on Garcia was only something they could do because of where they sat as a franchise.
“I think that’s something that clubs are not contending clubs can do where you’re like ‘You know what? This guy has big ability. Let’s take a shot on him and give him reps,’” he said. “Whereas a club that’s contending, it’s a little tougher to roll the dice and give 500 plate appearances or a bunch of innings to a guy with big ability but you’re not quite sure what you’re getting.
“When you’re rebuilding or when you have open spots, you’re not quite as good of a team, you have a little more opportunity to let that variance in his ability play out.”
Garcia became a villain in Houston in the ALCS, but that’s not who he is.
“He’s a gentle giant. He is just a wonderful, wonderful person,” Daniels said. “I’m sure Astros fans don’t see it that way right now but he’s a great dude so I’m happy for him.”