{"id":542919,"date":"2026-01-28T21:03:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T21:03:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/542919\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T21:03:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T21:03:14","slug":"the-last-man-in-free-agent-tournament-luis-garcia-vs-david-lough-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/542919\/","title":{"rendered":"The \u201cLast Man In\u201d free agent tournament: Luis Garcia vs. David Lough"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"\">In our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thegoodphight.com\/phillies-analysis\/77285\/the-last-man-in-free-agent-tournament\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:first matchup;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">first matchup<\/a> of the \u201cLast Man In\u201d tournament, in which we look at the last free agent signed before the season over the past 16 years, Nick Castellanos breezed past Joe Ross to advance to the next round.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">On to our next matchup: Seventh-seeded Luis Garcia vs. tenth-seeded David Lough!<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>7. Luis Garcia, 2013<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Stats with the Phillies: 251 games, 244 innings, 12-14 W-L, 5 saves, 4.12 ERA, 223 K, 125 BB, 2.09 WAR<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Originally signed by the Dodgers as an amateur free agent, Garcia was unable to make it to the big leagues and was pitching in independent leagues in 2013. The Phillies signed him as an amateur free agent, and after pitching well in the minors, he was called up to join the Phillies\u2019 bullpen.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Garcia stuck with the Phillies for six seasons. He was fine in middle relief but never earned enough trust to be consistently used in high leverage situations and was eventually traded to the Angels. He\u2019s bounced around the majors since then and pitched for three different teams in 2025.<\/p>\n<p>10. David Lough, 2016<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Stats with the Phillies: 30 games, .239\/.342\/.655, 0 HR, 4 RBI, -0.1 WAR<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">After a promising rookie season with the Royals in 2013, outfielder David Lough was traded to the Orioles, but was unable to follow up on that showing. He was regarded as a strong defender but couldn\u2019t hit well enough to earn a regular job.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">By 2015, he was a free agent, and the talent-deprived Phillies picked him up before the 2016 season. He appeared in 30 games, mostly as a late-game defensive replacement. By August, the Phillies chose to go in a different direction and released him. He bounced around the minor leagues but was never able to make it back to the majors.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Who should advance? Vote now!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In our first matchup of the \u201cLast Man In\u201d tournament, in which we look at the last free&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":542920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2397],"tags":[5,71040,39,350,71752,2098,4,8639,144,25,4216,40],"class_list":["post-542919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia-phillies","tag-baseball","tag-david-lough","tag-dodgers","tag-free-agent","tag-independent-leagues","tag-luis-garcia","tag-mlb","tag-nick-castellanos","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-phillies","tag-philadelphiaphillies","tag-phillies"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115974753793840790","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/542920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}