{"id":584091,"date":"2026-02-21T03:08:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T03:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/584091\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T03:08:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T03:08:11","slug":"yimi-garcia-wont-be-ready-for-blue-jays-opening-day-roster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/584091\/","title":{"rendered":"Yimi Garcia Won’t Be Ready For Blue Jays’ Opening Day Roster"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yimi Garcia<\/a>\u2019s 2025 season was prematurely ended last September by surgery to fix scar tissue in his throwing elbow.\u00a0 The right-hander\u2019s recovery progress will stretch into at least the first bit of the 2026 campaign, as Garcia told Sportnet\u2019s Shi Davidi<\/a> that he will \u201c100 percent\u201d not be ready to pitch when the Blue Jays begin play on March 27.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t appear as though Garcia will miss too much time, even if he does start the season on the 15-day injured list.\u00a0 \u201cI feel good right now, I feel better than last season,\u201d Garcia said, and he expects to start throwing off a mound perhaps as early as this week.\u00a0 Still, since the veteran reliever is \u201ca little behind\u201d in his throwing progression, it appears Garcia and the Jays are playing the long game in making sure he is fully ready for the coming season, even if that means some missed time in March and April.<\/p>\n

To his chagrin, Garcia has been a frequent visitor to the IL in the last two seasons, as a variety of injuries have limited the righty to 61 appearances and 60 innings pitched for the Blue Jays and Mariners in 2024-25.\u00a0 Garcia missed time in 2024 with both neuritis and inflammation in his right elbow, and he was limited by a shoulder impingement (leading to a 60-day IL stint) and a sprained left ankle in 2025.\u00a0 Garcia hasn\u2019t pitched since July 2, as his elbow issues resurfaced while he was rehabbing his ankle sprain.<\/p>\n

All of these injuries would be a concern for any pitcher, especially a veteran like Garcia who is turning 36 this August.\u00a0 Garcia has still been pretty effective when he has been able to pitch, posting a 3.60 ERA and 30.5% strikeout rate over his last 60 IP.\u00a0 His walk rate did take a big leap upwards from 7.8% in 2024 to 13.3% in 2025, which could be viewed as an injury-related outlier given how Garcia\u2019s previous career high BB% was 8.3%, and that came over 15 innings during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.<\/p>\n

The Blue Jays dealt Garcia to the Mariners at the 2024 trade deadline, and despite his elbow issues, Toronto felt comfortable enough to bring the reliever back on a two-year, $15MM free agent deal last winter.\u00a0 It is quite possible that having a healthy Garcia in the bullpen might\u2019ve put the Blue Jays over the top in the World Series, and the team is again viewing him as a key piece of the late-game mix.\u00a0 When healthy, Garcia will join postseason workhorse Louis Varland<\/a> and new signing Tyler Rogers<\/a> as the top set-up options to closer Jeff Hoffman<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yimi Garcia\u2019s 2025 season was prematurely ended last September by surgery to fix scar tissue in his throwing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57579,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,4,2077],"class_list":{"0":"post-584091","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-yimi-garcia"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584091","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=584091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=584091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=584091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=584091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}