Pittsburgh Pirates: Examining How 2020 Draft Picks Are Performing

Nick Garcia

The Pittsburgh Pirates used their third-round pick on Nick Garcia. Garcia was coming off a strong college career that saw him post a 1.19 ERA, 1.44 FIP, and .831 WHIP in 83 innings of work. Garcia struck out a ton of batters, getting opponents down on strike three 35.6% of the time. However, this didn’t come at the cost of his control, posting a 5.4% walk rate. The most impressive part of Garcia’s time in college is that he allowed zero home runs.

Garcia has joined Jones down at Bradenton. He’s worked as both a starting pitcher and a reliever having played in 12 total games but starting 5. In total, he has tossed 38.2 innings posting a solid 3.26 ERA and 1.371 WHIP, but a worryingly high 5.01 FIP and 4.81 xFIP. Garcia is striking out over a quarter of the batters he’s faced so far, having a 25.3% K-rate. But walks have been a huge issue. He’s surrendered a free pass 12.1% of the time. He’s carrying a solid .93 HR/9 rate.

But his batted ball rates suggest that he could lower that. He’s inducing ground balls 57.6% of the time. Line drives have essentially been a non-issue, posting a 12.1% line drive rate. He’s only given up fly balls 30.3% of the time and 23.3% of said fly balls are infield flies.

Garcia is a little older than Jones. He just turned 22 in April. There is a chance that Garcia gets a taste of Greensboro before the end of the season, but he definitely needs to work on his command. While it’s one of his few issues so far this season, it’s a very big problem to have, surrendering walks over 12% of the time.