INDIANAPOLIS – Willy Garcia has the potential, just not the consistency.
Defense isn’t a concern for the right fielder, who has shown he has a strong arm and is considered to have one of the best outfield arms in the Pirates’ system. It’s his performance at the plate that causes concern. The good news is Garcia is just 23 years old, so he has time to correct that issue. The bad news is that he appears to have taken a step back this season with his offensive production.
One of the biggest problems with Garcia in the past was his high strikeout rate, though it looked like he was possibly making strides in that area last year. After striking out 33% of the time over 439 at-bats in Altoona in 2014, he dropped that rate to 23% over 204 at-bats in 2015, before being promoted to Indianapolis mid-season. With the Indians, Garcia struck out 27.5% of his 276 at-bats.
So far this season, Garcia is striking out 33% of the time. He’s hitting .233 with an OPS of .631. Both of those numbers would be career lows for an entire season.
“The biggest thing with Willy we’re trying to get him to do is see the ball up,” Indianapolis hitting coach Butch Wynegar said. “We’re not looking down, we’re not chasing sliders. We’re really trying to see something elevated.”
Part of the problem is that Garcia will expand the strike zone in certain counts, making it more difficult to have productive at-bats.
“He expands the zone with two strikes,” Indians manager Dean Treanor said. “He’ll even expand it with one strike.”
He’s hitting .295 with a .977 OPS when ahead in the count, compared to a .233 average and .534 OPS when behind in the count. Garcia has only 44 at-bats when ahead in the count, compared to 73 when behind.
Garcia said he feels comfortable at the plate, despite not having the success he would like.
“The only thing I work on is not trying to do too much,” Garcia said. “I’m trying to hit the ball middle-away, middle-right-field.”
The strikeouts are a concern, but that fear could be somewhat muted by consistently having good at-bats with solid contact.
“Then I think you kind of look not as hard at that,” Treanor said. “You don’t want to get him to force contact to the ball with two strikes and lose some power. But his power numbers are down. We just need to get him going.”
But Garcia seems content to just putting the ball in play and going for an off-gap approach. He still has the power, but it’s not showing because of a mechanical issue with his swing, Wynegar said.
“I’m not saying he refuses to do it, but it’s hard for him to do it consistently right now,” Wynegar said. “That just means staying back, staying on that back side, having some drive, and staying behind the ball in order to back spin the ball out of the ballpark.”
In the end, there’s only so much a coaching staff can do to help a player. The player has to conquer the mental side of hitting and be productive on a consistent basis, Wynegar said.
“We’re big over here of guys taking ownership of their swing, taking ownership of their at-bats and what they do here,” Wynegar said. “I can talk to them until I’m blue in the face but until they want to go up there and want to do it, then there are certain things that are going to show up. There’s no doubt the talent is in there, and the ability, and the power.”
Garcia has shown his defense is solid. In the Indians’ win over Rochester on June 1, Garcia ended the game when he caught a flyball in right field and then threw out a runner trying to advance to third on the play. He’s made just one error in 47 starts at the position.
The offensive production is not where it needs to be. But at his age, Garcia has time to improve his plate appearances, which means he needs to find a way to strike out less but still show the pop he has in his bat. His defense is good enough as it is now, so inconsistent offense is the main thing holding Garcia back from moving to the majors in the near future.
