There was considerable anticipation as to whom the Dodgers might extend September call ups to as the minor league season wound down. One name that was on everyone’s list was Joc Pederson, generally considered the Dodgers’ prospect most likely to make it to the big leagues either next year or in 2016. Another player that most expected would get a call up was Alex Guerrero along with catcher Tim Federowicz.

I expected those players to become bench players for the Dodgers in September but I also hoped and expected that 24-year-old Yimi Garcia would get the call. The Dodgers are in need of bullpen help and Garcia surely has paid his dues over a six year period in the Dodgers farm system.

Garcia was signed by the Dodgers as an amateur free agent out of Moca in the Dominican Republic in January 2009. Since then Garcia has played with all seven teams in the Dodgers farm system. His first stop was with the Dominican Summer League Dodgers where he posted some impressive numbers for an eighteen year old. His ERA was a tidy 1.67 in 54 innings of work. He struck out 51, walked 15 and posted a WHIP of 0.963. Five of his appearances were as a starting pitcher.

The following year Garcia spent the entire season with the Arizona League Dodgers. His performance would not have encouraged anyone to look ahead and see him in a Dodger home uniform five years later. His ERA ballooned to 7.04 and he was torched for 47 hits in 30.2 innings. However, the year proved to be a valuable learning experience for the nineteen year old Garcia. He again made four appearances as a starter with the AZL Dodgers.

It became evident that the Dodgers thought very highly of Yimi Garcia when they added him to the 40-man roster last December to protect him from the Rule 5 Draft. (Photo credit – Tim Evearitt)

The off season probably was a bit long for Garcia but he proved to be a fast learner: “I didn’t know what had happened,” Garcia said. “I had always thrown my fastball down the middle, and in the Dominican, you could get guys out that way, just blowing it by them. But I came back that next year, 2011 (at Ogden in the Rookie-level Pioneer League), and I started using my slider and my change up a lot more.” With the Raptors Garcia lowered his ERA to 3.10 with a WHIP of 1.24. His pattern of a high strikeout to walks ratio continued in Ogden as he struck out 71 and walked 19 in 52.1 innings.

Garcia pitched for both the Great Lakes Loons and Rancho Cucamonga Quakes in 2012. His numbers were starting to attract attention but he did not break into the top Dodger prospect rankings. Again, in 52.1 innings on the season he had a combined 3.02 ERA while striking out 82 and walking 22.

Garcia’s season with the Chattanooga Lookouts in 2013 cemented his status as a player to watch and was his best minor league season. He lowered his ERA to 2.54 in 60.1 innings while striking out 85 and walking 14.

Yimi Garcia was finally on the radar. In October he was sent to participate in the Arizona Fall League and gained all-star recognition in the league pitching 12.2 innings while posting a 2.84 ERA with eight strikeouts and three walks. In January of 2014 he was invited to attend the Dodgers 7th annual Winter Development Camp.

In 2014 Garcia stood on the mound in Albuquerque now having stood on the mound in every Dodgers minor league park. He pitched 61 innings with a 3.10 ERA with the Isotopes striking out 69 and walking 18.

In reading scouting reports I found it difficult to figure out how Garcia missed so many bats. Over time three possible answers to my question have surfaced. Perhaps a combination of the three can explain it.

First, Garcia profited from his AZL Dodger experience. He didn’t spend time feeling sorry for himself but went to work and learned something about pitching. Chris O’Brien, who caught him in 2012 with the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes explains: “He’s competitive. He knows what he wants to do. When a pitcher knows what they want to do, they’re very successful,” O’Brien said. “He knows how to get people out. He stays with his strengths no matter what. He throws a lot of strikes, and throws all his pitches for strikes, so he keeps hitters off balance.”

Secondly, Garcia’s pitching repertoire is perhaps better than I anticipated. ScoutingBook.com in 2012 was much higher on Garcia than most baseball sources. They wrote: “One of the most intriguing prospects in the Dodgers system, right-hander Yimi Garcia is a young, wiry Dominican with a strikeout slider that might be the best in the minors today [2012]. It’s the strength of that slider that helped him strike out 82 hitters in only 52 innings of work across two levels of play last season.”

Garcia’s slider was on display in his strikeout of Anthony Rendon in the eighth inning in his major league debut with the Dodgers on Monday night. His composure was also on display as he allowed only one fly ball to the six hitters he faced.

Although it may have been Mattingly’s intention not to bring Garcia into a pressure situation for his MLB debut but that’s exactly what happened on Monday night. (Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

Still, with a fastball in the low nineties, the strikeout thing remained a bit of a mystery. Jonathan Mayo provided his take on Garcia’s stuff: ”Garcia adds deception to an already live fastball that tails and sinks. He can reach back for extra when he needs to and is particularly effective when he keeps it down in the zone. His slider can be slurvy at times, but it has good bite to it when he throws it hard enough. Those two pitches alone, along with average command, should be enough to get him to a big league bullpen in the near future.”

Regardless of his stuff, his composure, his understanding of pitching, his strike out rate was still a bit baffling. Greg Maddux struck out 6.1 hitters per nine innings in his career and who had more pitching savvy than Maddux? Yimi Garcia has averaged 11 strikeouts per nine innings in his career, albeit at a lower level than Maddux.

Thirdly, the Arizona Fall League in 2013 may have revealed a most interesting clue to Garcia’s swing and miss stuff that is not flaming hot. TrackMan, which uses radar tracking to quantify 27 different measurements, was used in the AFL for the first time and showed that Garcia gets an unusually high amount of spin on his pitches. The major league average RPM for a fastball is 2,400; Garcia gets 2,504. His slider gets even more spin, at 2,688 RPM. There is a correlation between spin rate and swinging strike rate, which explains his success. Interesting indeed.

So what is the plan for Yimi Garcia this September? Don Mattingly outlined his role: “Yimi gives us another arm out there, a guy who’s pitched late in games at the Triple-A level, also has been pitched in multiple-inning situations. At this point (Garcia offers) protection for us in different ways. Not necessarily are we going to throw him in the middle of an eighth-inning jam, but he’s here to protect other guys.”

Having followed Yimi Garcia since 2011, picking him up as a Raptor, I look forward to the next chapter in his baseball life. I expect each time I see him pitch now I will be thinking about RPM’s – but so will the hitters.