The Boston Red Sox Lab just keeps on giving.
After trading Kyle Teel, the Red Sox fans were, deservedly so, quite upset. It's never fun losing one of your best prospects. But 'The Password' to making fans happy is just developing another one.
Editors Note: For those new here. Louis’ is a MLB fan from Belgium. We are international now.
Jhostynxon ‘The Password’ Garcia has the potential to be special.
Jhostynxon Garcia was signed by the Red Sox in 2019 as an amateur FA out of Venezuela, but never really stood out. Both his DSL & CPX numbers made him one of many ‘decent’ prospects, but nothing to get excited about.
However, his 2024 has propelled him towards Top 10 prospect status in the Red Sox farm, and could arguably be even higher. Let’s break it down.
And in case you don’t believe it, his nickname really is ‘The Password’
2024: Improvements across the board.
Garcia came into 2024 with little expectations. He played an entire season at Single-A in 2023 and never really impressed, finishing with a .230/.329/.374 slash line & .703 OPS through 73 games.
He started 2024 at Single-A, absolutely mashed for the majority of his stay there, and swiftly moved on to High-A, where he really started to catch people’s attention.
His A+ numbers are pretty much insane:
53 games
16 HR
.311 BA
.998 OPS
21% K%
5.2% BB%
Garcia was only 21 at the time, and was absolutely destroying baseballs. This led to a final promotion to Double-A, where he had slightly less success on the power side of things:
Double-A numbers:
30 games
2 HR
.260 BA
.706 OPS
19% K%
4.8% BB%
He still performed well, but didn’t really manage to produce the same level of power that we’ve come accustomed to. However, that was his second promotion in a single season, not easy to do for any player.
Pull-side power, combined with Class-A elevation.
The biggest improvement for Garcia, and what likely led to his outbreak in 2024, is the difference in his batted ball profiles, even between the 3 levels. At Single-A, Garcia had a 39% GB% & 34% FB%, in combination with a 37.5% Pull%.
As we know, he found most of his success at High-A, and the numbers absolutely refelct that - Garcia’s GB% dropped a staggering 9.1%, his FB% flew up by 7.3% & his Pull%, likely the most important metric here, went up from the previous 37.5% to 42.1%, clearly allowing Garcia to tap more into his power.
His move to AA was extremely important to further examine what type of power Garcia has. His GB% went back up to 37.1%, but he increased his FB% by another 4% to 48.3%. This didn’t result in the same home run production as it did in High-A, likely because of two factors:
His Line-Drive% dropped from 25.(% to 14.6%, which could possibly indicate that he’s elevating too much & getting under the ball too often. This is further supported by an increase in his IFFB%.
His Pull% dropped from the 42.1% it was at High-A to 36.3% at Double-A, a career-low for Garcia.
It’s obvious that Garcia’s power is Isaac-Paredes like, reliant on pulling the baseball.
Summary: (Pull) power potential is off the charts.
I’m a big fan of Jhostynxon Garcia. His ability to deliver pull-power and the results he’s gotten from doing so are elite, and would catapult him into anyone’s Top 100, his strikeout rate isn’t bad considering the type of player he is, although his plate discipline & ability to take walks definitely needs work.
And there is a chance that his power still grows as he physically matures. Garcia might be 22 now, but he is registered at 6’0”, 163 lbs. For a baseball player, that’s just straight-up skinny. For a potential power hitter, that’s just underweight. Add on 20 pounds of muscle over the winter, and you don’t know what type of beast we could be talking about in 2025.
A lot depends on how he develops as a player this off-season, both physically & mentally, as the higher up he goes, the quicker pitchers will understand his tendencies to chase, which will result in major struggles. StatCast data will be able to tell us a lot too.
At his peak, Garcia could be an everyday starter at the MLB level with 20 HR potential.
I just picked him up in the second round of a 30-team fantasy league FYPD draft. But not just that. It’s a league where we can’t add prospects in-season, and Garcia was, statistically, one of the best hitters in the draft. His value in all fantasy leagues is still incredibly undervalued, and you might be able to pick him up as a free agent in most leagues.
Thank you all for reading!
Louis