{"id":709123,"date":"2026-05-26T09:33:25","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T09:33:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/709123\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T09:33:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T09:33:25","slug":"luis-garcia-elects-free-agency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/709123\/","title":{"rendered":"Luis Garc\u00eda Elects Free Agency"},"content":{"rendered":"

Luis Garc\u00eda<\/a> made nine appearances for the Twins this season, giving up 10 runs in 8 2\/3 innings of work. Over the weekend, Minnesota designated the right-hander for assignment<\/a>. Today, he rejected an outright assignment in favor of free agency (per Dan Hayes of The Athletic<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Garc\u00eda, 39, has pitched 618 games over the last 14 seasons. Only five active pitchers<\/a> have thrown more games \u2013 and that\u2019s being generous with the word \u201cactive.\u201d The righty debuted with the Phillies in 2013 and spent the next six years of his career in Philadelphia. He then pitched for nine different teams from 2019 to \u201926: the Angels, Rangers, Cardinals, Padres, Red Sox, Dodgers, Nationals, Mets, and Twins. All told, he owns a 4.20 ERA and a 3.94 SIERA in 598 1\/3 innings of work. He is 28-31 with 19 saves, 118 holds, and 553 strikeouts. A groundball pitcher, Garc\u00eda has induced 945 grounders in his career, second-most among relievers since his debut; only T.J. McFarland<\/a> induced more batted balls on the ground.<\/p>\n

Even in his best years, Garc\u00eda was rarely a high-leverage arm. What he is is an innings eater, and he has continued to be just that into his late thirties. From 2023-25, his age-36 to 38 seasons, he tossed at least 55 innings each year, pitching to a 4.14 ERA and 3.82 SIERA. Unfortunately, the 2026 season hasn\u2019t gone quite as well for him. He\u2019s given up 16 runs (15 earned) in 15 innings for the Mets and Twins, with just six strikeouts and a career-worst 38.3% groundball rate. That explains why the veteran passed through waivers so quickly. Still, considering his track record, it wouldn\u2019t be surprising to see Garc\u00eda quickly latch on with a team in need of bullpen depth. Teams like that are never in short supply.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Luis Garc\u00eda made nine appearances for the Twins this season, giving up 10 runs in 8 2\/3 innings…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":709124,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2290],"tags":[5,2098],"class_list":["post-709123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-baseball","tag-baseball","tag-luis-garcia"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116640193165442138","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709123","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=709123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/709124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=709123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=709123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=709123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}