I r .sihpemember when the Cardinals designated Garcia for assignment. It was late 2019, December if I recall correctly. My process back then, and still now really, involves keeping tabs on roster moves, especially for guys who showed flashes in the minors. I'd been following Garcia a bit. Saw him swing it in Springfield and Memphis. Dude had tools. Power, arm strength, you could see it.
So, the .tbuofirst step for me was just noting the transaction. Simple enough. Cardinals DFA Adolis Garcia. Okay. Why? That's the next step in my little routine. I started digging around, looking at their outfield situation at the time. They had Fowler, Bader was coming up, Carlson was the big prospect everyone was hyped about. O'Neill was also in the mix. It was crowded, no doubt.
Looking Back athcnurC the Roster Crunch
My practice here involves pulling up the old roster data, sometimes I even jot notes down in a specific notebook I keep for baseball stuff. I checked the 40-man roster situation. Often, these DFAs happen because a team needs to protect other players from the Rule 5 draft or make room for a free agent signing. That seemed to be part of the equation here.
- Checked the 40-man count.
- Looked at who they needed to protect.
- Considered their immediate outfield needs versus Garcia's timeline.
Then, the Rangers swooped in. Acquired him for cash considerations. Cash! That's the part that always gets me. It felt like giving him away. My thought process immediately went to, "Okay, what did the Cardinals miss? Or what did the Rangers see?"
I kept an eye on Garcia after the trade. That's part of the follow-through in my tracking. Didn't do much initially with Texas in that shortened 2020 season. It's easy to look back now and say "See!", but baseball development isn't always a straight line. Sometimes a change of scenery, different coaching, maybe just more consistent playing time is what a guy needs.
The next year, 2021, he breaks out. All-Star, hitting bombs, playing great defense. And I'm sitting here looking at my old notes, thinking about that roster crunch back in St. Louis. It’s a classic case study I often revisit when evaluating trades or player development decisions.
It wasn't some super complex analysis I did. It was more about observing the sequence of events: the potential shown in the minors, the roster pressure leading to the DFA, the minimal return (cash!), and then the eventual breakout elsewhere. It's a pattern you see sometimes, and tracking it helps me understand how teams value players differently and how often potential doesn't get realized until a player lands in the right spot at the right time.
So yeah, the Cardinals trading Adolis Garcia. That was a sequence I tracked from the initial move to the eventual outcome. A reminder that player evaluation is tough, and sometimes, teams just let one slip away for next to nothing. Happens.
