MVN - Most Valuable Network

Harvey Garcia placed on 60 day DL

In order to make room for Burke Badenhop on the 40 man roster, the Marlins had to either drop someone or place one of the walking wounded on the 60 day disabled list. The Marlins chose to put right-handed reliever Harvey Garcia on the 60 day DL. He was originally placed on the 15 day DL back in March for right shoulder tendonitis.

Originally signed by the Marlins in 2000 (before being released in 2002), the Fish ended up trading for Garcia in the Josh Beckett deal two winters ago. Closing for the high-A Jupiter Hammerheads in 2006, Garcia was pretty much unhittable all season long. Yea, he had 7 losses that year but that isn’t too important in the grand scheme of things. Making the jump from low A to high A, most of Garcia’s numbers improved. Hits per 9 went down from 9.87 to 7.52, K thru 9 went from 10.88 to 11.55, and his whip dropped from 1.50 to 1.33 even though his era rose 0.91 points.

In 2007, Harvey bounced from Carolina to Albuquerque and ultimately finding himself in the majors late in the year. His numbers failed to impress at any level, as his control or lacktherof was a real problem. In Carolina, he was walking over 6 per 9. His walk rate would remain over 4 in both Albuquerque and with the Marlins. The problem was that with the Isotopes and in the majors, hitters were hitting his fastball as he allowing 10+ hits per 9 in both places. His strikeout rate suffered a bit too.

He has drawn comparisons to players all over the map. From Pascual Perez to even Mariano Rivera. Harvey throws a 93-95mph that tops out at 98mph to go with a suspect slider which he cannot control at times. In order to gain more consistency, Garcia has been trying to simplify his delivery. He has the makings of a solid changeup but he doesn’t use it enough to work on that pitch. Like most hard throwers, they would rather blow someone away with the 98mph cheese than with their changeup. When things don’t go his way, his confidence has been known to drop some causing some to worry about his mental makeup.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 7th, 2008 at 4:31 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.