MLB Scout's Video View: Analyzing Nationals Prospect Luis Garcia

Image credit: (Photo by Mike Janes/Four Seam Images)

While the game is away, Baseball America is digging into its video database and asking scouts around the game to analyze what they see from some of the sport’s best prospects. Today’s subject is Nationals infielder Luis Garcia.

Garcia entered the season as the youngest player in the Double-A Eastern League by more than a year. He performed admirably for Harrisburg, hitting .257/.280/.337 with 22 doubles and four home runs. He was 10 for his first 24 in spring training before the spread of novel coronavirus forced the sport to pause.

Garcia enters the year as the Nationals’ No. 2 prospect. You can find his full scouting report here.

Here’s the video below, followed by what our scout had to say.

SCOUT: Garcia is a good hitter and I think he’ll be a very solid big league regular, maybe even make an all-star team or three. But he’s got adjustments to make to be a star.

What I like about him is he is consistent with his swing. He took good BP for me in my looks at him, focused and with a similar approach as he used in the game. He was disciplined and diligent about staying inside the baseball, getting the barrel to the ball and using the whole field. I never saw him let it rip, sell out for power and try to get the ball out front for pull power. I do like his balance, and he’s got the present strength to make it work.

This video is what I have in my notes; he strides fairly aggressively early in the count and does look to drive the ball, but he also has a two-strike approach, commendable for such a young player. With more experience I see him being able to be even more selectively aggressive and make the adjustments necessary to look to drive the ball more consistently, rather than just making solid contact.

I thought he had pure rhythm and timing, a classic “born hitter.”

The thing is today how much better will he get? Will he be content to just make contact, or will he work counts, set up pitchers and hit for impact power? He obviously didn’t do that as a teenager in Double-A last season. He probably made contact too easily for his own good. Making that leap is significant and hard.

He wasn’t terribly selective in my looks but more than the numbers showed in Harrisburg. That’s where you wonder if being around Juan Soto would come in handy, just for him to see that kind of approach up close. But that selectivity skill doesn’t rub off or transmit by osmosis.

He needs to work on being selective, and that’s the whole key to his ceiling. He’s a solid athlete, ran better than I expected looking at him … I think he’ll be able to stick in the dirt, but whether or not he’s a star really is up to him. He’s got work to do.