The Blue Jays have agreed to a deal with right-hander Yimi Garcia, as per former player Carlos Baerga via Instgram (hat tip to MLB Network’s Jon Morosi).
Garcia comes to Toronto after something of a tough end to his 2021 season. After the Marlins dealt Garcia to the Astros at the trade deadline, Garcia posted a 5.48 ERA over 21 1/3 innings with Houston. While his strikeout and walk rates improved following the trade, he had some bad luck in the form of a very low 42.6% strand rate. With a 2.98 SIERA for his time as an Astro, the argument can certainly be made that Garcia deserved better, and things didn’t really improve thanks to a couple of rough outings in the playoffs.
On the whole, Garcia had a 4.21 ERA/3.61 ERA over 57 2/3 combined innings in 2021, with a 25.3% strikeout rate and 7.6% walk rate that were both better than the league average. Garcia allowed quite a bit of hard contact, but he continued to boast one of baseball’s very best fastball spin rates. Perhaps most promisingly, Garcia’s home run rate was a manageable 14.5%, after the long ball led to a lot of issues when he pitched for the Dodgers in 2018-19.
More to come…