Adolis García

From BR Bullpen

José Adolis García Arrieta
(El Bombi)

  • Bats Right, Throws Right
  • Height 6' 1", Weight 168 lb.

BR page

Biographical Information[edit]

Adolis García, also known as José Adolis García, has played in Cuba, as did his father José García and brother Adonis García. He defected to the United States in 2016 and made his major league debut in 2018.

García debuted for the Tigres de Ciego de Ávila in 2011-2012, going 8 for 37 with a double, homer, 3 runs and 3 RBI as a backup at 2B to Mario Vega. It was the year the Tigres won their first Cuban Serie Nacional title. He was 3 for 13 with 10 runs in 2012-2013, used mainly as a pinch-runner. He became the team's starting right fielder in 2013-2014 and hit .281/.333/.391 in 40 first-half games but the club did not qualify for the second half and no other team picked him up for the stretch run.

At age 21 in 2014-2015, he had a break-through year, producing at a .322/.366/.485 clip with 62 runs and 12 homers in 85 games; the lone negatives were his steal rate (11 for 25) and his fielding percentage (.943 in RF). He led the league in at-bats, was 5th in runs (between Guillermo Aviles and Dennis Laza), led in hits (110, two ahead of Yordanis Samón), tied for 6th in homers with Liván Monteagudo and Aviles, was second with 166 total bases (11 behind Urmani Guerra), tied for 4th in steals but led in times caught stealing and led with 67 whiffs. He helped the Tigres to their second title. He was not named one of the league's Offensive All-Stars as Yadiel Hernández was chosen in RF.

García was Cuba's starting center fielder in the 2015 Pan American Games (and also backed up Guerra in right). He hit .206/.290/.471 with 15 putouts and one assist. He homered three times in eight games to tie Tyson Gillies, Alfredo Despaigne, Tyler O'Neill, Jeffrey Dominguez and Brock Kjeldgaard for second in the Games in long balls, behind Anthony García). He went deep off Colombia's Javier Ortiz for a two-run shot for the first runs of the Games, homered against Nicaragua's Gerardo Juárez but saved his best for the Bronze Medal Game. He scored that game's first run, walking against Andrés Santiago of Puerto Rico and coming home on a Despaigne hit in the first. With the game 6-6 in the bottom of the 9th, he homered off Raúl Rivera to give Cuba the Bronze. He hit .217/.217/.304 in the 2016 Caribbean Series and got to play against his brother for the first time in a pro game; he went 2 for 4 while Adonis was 0 for 4.

He led the Tigres to another title in 2015-2016, hitting .319/.399/.523 with 71 RBI and 14 homers in 81 games, while registering 15 outfield assists. He was 6th in the league in runs (62, between Yorbis Borroto and Yunior Paumier), 9th in hits (103), tied Yulieski Gurriel for 7th in doubles (20), ranked 5th in home runs, led in RBI (6 more than #2 Michel Gorguet), was 4th in steals (11) and was 6th in slugging (between Yordanis Samón and Osvaldo Vázquez). He was named Serie Nacional MVP even though other players had better raw numbers. He was the first MVP ever from the Tigres.

He signed with the Yomiuri Giants for 2016 as part of a recent option for Cuban stars to play in Japan. He only played four games in NPB, going 0 for 7 with 3 whiffs. In his debut, he pinch-hit for Seiji Tahara and fanned against Hiroyuki Fukuyama. He only hit .234/.274/.398 in the Japanese minors. The team let him go in late August; he complained about the lack of beans and grilled chicken in Japan. He defected from Cuba later that year and was declared a free agent by Major League Baseball in December. On February 24, 2017, he signed a contract with the St. Louis Cardinals. He was immediately assigned to the team's major league camp, with a chance to earn a job as a back-up outfielder. That did not happen immediately, as he spent that first season in the minors, hitting a combined .290/.340/.476 in 124 games between the Springfield Cardinals of the Texas League and the Memphis Redbirds of the Pacific Coast League. He started 2018 back with Memphis and was hitting .269 with 21 homers after 98 games when he got the call to St. Louis. He made his debut on August 8th going 0 for 4 as the starting centerfielder against the Miami Marlins. He ended up hitting just .118 in 21 games.

Adolis spent the entire 2019 season in the minors with Memphis, where he hit.253 in 132 games with 22 doubles and 32 homers, both scoring and driving in 96 runs. On December 21st, his contract was sold to the Texas Rangers, who had some likely openings on the outfield following the trades of Nomar Mazara and Delino DeShields Jr. He only appeared in 3 games for the Rangers in 2020, going 0 for 6. In 2021, however, he burst out, especially in May when he was named the American League Rookie of the Month after hitting a major league best 11 homers during the month, while also collecting 27 RBIs. He finished at.243 in 149 games with 31 homers, 77 runs and 90 RBIs, and made the All-Star team and the 2021 Topps All-Star Rookie Team.

He had another successful season in 2022, hitting .250 in 156 games, with 34 doubles, 27 homers and 101 RBIs. Whereas some observers stated he was overrated in his rookie season because of his poor command of the strike zone (32 walks and 194 strikeouts), he saw some improvement on that score in his second year, and as a result his OPS+ improved from 100 to 113. He started the 2023 season on a tear and on April 22nd had a tremendous game in an 18-3 win over the Oakland Athletics. He homered in his first three at-bats of the game, in the 1st, 3rd and 5th innings, with two-run shots each time, then came up twice more with a chance at a four-homer game, but hit a double both times, in the 7th and 9th innings. He ended his night's work with 8 RBIs, giving him the major league lead at that point. In between his first and second homers, he was hit in the arm by a pitch from Shintaro Fujinami, who had given up his first blast, in the 2nd inning. It was the first three-homer game by a member of the Rangers since Ronald Guzman had achieved the feat in 2018. He fell one shy of the team RBI mark set by Ivan Rodriguez, and also scored five runs. After being named an All-Star for the second time, he finished the season at .245 in 148 games, with 39 homers, 107 runs and 108 RBIs, with an OPS+ of 123. He was a breakout star in the postseason, hitting .357 with a homer in the three-game sweep of the Baltimore Orioles in the Division Series, and then putting up video game numbers in the ALCS against the Houston Astros to win the ALCS MVP Award. In the seven games, he homered five times, scored 7 runs and drove in 15, batted .357 and slugged .893. He hit a key homer in Game 5 that gave the Rangers a 4-2 lead, then started a fracas in the 8th inning when he was hit by a pitch by Bryan Abreu that the umpires determined had been intentional. He was ejected from that game and the Astros came back to win it, 5-4, in the 9th inning, but he was unstoppable in the final two games at Minute Maid Park, homering three times and driving in a total of nine runs. He continued his heroics in Game 1 of the World Series against the Arizona Diamondbacks on October 27th: he hit an RBI single in the 1st, then after Corey Seager had tied the game with a two-run homer in the bottom of the 9th, ended it with a walk-off homer against Miguel Castro in the 11th, for a 6-5 Rangers win. This gave him homers in five consecutive games, and the two RBIs increased his total to 22, breaking the all-time postseason record set by David Freese in 2011. He had to miss the final two games of the series, won by the Rangers in five games, after straining his side in flying out towards the end of Game 3; he was placed on the injured list and replaced on the roster by Ezequiel Duran.

Before the 2024 season, he signed a two-year extension with the Rangers, worth between $14 million and $20.5 million depending on bonus clauses. The etension covered his two final years of eligibility for salary arbitration.

Notable Achievements[edit]

Sources[edit]

Further Reading[edit]

  • Schuyler Dixon (Associated Press): "García hits 3 HRs for Texas, doubles twice with shot at 4th", Yahoo! News, April 22, 2023. [1]
  • Michael Guzman: "Adolis, Yermín could join select ROY club", mlb.com, June 6, 2021. [2]
  • Nathan Han: "García breaks postseason RBI record with walk-off blast", mlb.com, October 28, 2023. [3]
  • Thomas Harrigan and Theo DeRosa: "Tracing Adolis' remarkable journey leading up to postseason breakout", October 28, 2023. [4]
  • Julia Kreuz: "Adolis’s record-setting ALCS earns him MVP honors: García follows Game 6 grand slam with pair of homers in Game 7 vs. Houston", mlb.com, October 24, 2023. [5]
  • Kennedi Landry: "García in rare company after 3-HR, 8-RBI night: Rangers' OF just the 4th player in AL/NL history with 3 HRs and 2 doubles in one game", mlb.com, April 22, 2023. [6]
  • Kennedi Landry and Brian Murphy: "World Series hero García signs 2-year deal with Rangers", mlb.com, February 8, 2024. [7]

Related Sites[edit]

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