How Jhostynxon Garcia (alias the password) could unlock a new range for the Red Sox on the section
Baseball is so crazy! At the start of the season, SOX fans hoped that a trio of recruits could inject a certain life into the lethargic programming. More specifically, Kristian Campbell, Marcelo Mayer and Roman Anthony. Well, so far, there are 1-3 in this department with Campbell in Worcester (where he recovered slowly), Mayer has done for the year with wrist surgery, and Anthony becomes an integral part of the daily range.
However, we could always end up with a scenario where three recruits end up having a huge impact on the programming before the end of the season. One has already done so in Carlos Narvaez (can you imagine how screwed the SOX would have been screwed to the receiver’s position this year if he did not intensify?), But another emerged in Worcester.
Advertisement
Jhostynxon Garcia (or password, as he is known in most circles), he was a pleasure to follow this season. He started the year as an easy-to-neglect outdoor battle (did the Red Sox really need another?). Then it became possible a commercial bait before the front-office fiasco on the deadline, and now it quietly becomes an option that could have an impact on the section.
He is currently beating. 308 with an OPP .372 and a .945 OPS at 22 years old at Worcester, and he has been particularly hot in August until now, displaying a 1,114 Ops. However, when you look under the hood, they could be something that excites even more.
Here are its operations against the right -handers of each of the last two seasons (covering several levels of the minor league):
2024: .852
Advertisement
2025: .865
Quite solid, right?
Here’s what it looks like against left -handers:
2024: .1.186
2025: 1.028
Whoa! I think Rob Refsnyder and Romy Gonzalez could have a new friend.
By digging even deeper, the figures are only becoming more interesting. Against right -handers, Garcia has 784 appearances on the plates during this period. Against left -handed? It’s only 104. It is almost an eight to one relationship.
You see, a strange thing happens in upper minors with left -handed pitchers. They are among the system because everyone needs an additional effort by throwing Southpaw into their enclosure of the lifts to obtain the advantage of the peloton when a left -handed striker appears in a large place late in the match.
Advertisement
The result is that guys generally do not face so many left -handed launchers in the past year or two before breaking the majors, and this can be played in two different ways. For someone like Marcelo Mayer, it made his development more difficult because he had to learn to face the left -handers of the major league on the fly in limited appearances. This is something he will continue to fight on his return next year.
But on the other hand, this phenomenon can also underestimate the left-handed killers because their overall number is an under-representative distribution of what they will face in major leagues. This is why Romy Gonzalez, for example, has a .786 OPS in 156 career games with the Red Sox after having published an OPS in career .804 in the minor leagues.
So, at this stage, the lowest 20% on the list of Red Sox being its greatest anchor and its biggest obstacle to overcome the section, when we start to ask which players that Garcia could move in the programming? Assuming that Abraham Toro soon left with the addition of the short stay of Nathaniel Lowe and Rob Refsnyder (hopefully) on IL, the next guy on the hot seat would logically be Masataka Yoshida. If he does not start to strike by the end of the month (therefore, this road trip), the Red Sox must start using his DH bats for their excess external fields.
Yoshida Logjam has already created a problem that has pushed Ceddanne Rafaela from her perch as the best defensive field in the League, and there is really no way to get around the fact that Yoshida’s presence has done more harm than good. If we arrive at a point in September where the SOXs have Roman Anthony, Wilyer Abreu, Ceddanne Rafaela, Jarren Duran, Rob Refsnyder and now Jhostynxon Garcia fighting for cats on the outside field, Yoshida must be moved. (The fact that they started Garcia for a match at the first base the other day reveals a lot about the size of a logjam.)
Advertisement
But imagine a world that involves these six exercise championships that settle in four places (three in the outside field and the DH). Anthony should play every day because he is great, and Rafaela should be in the central field every day because he is the best in the American league in this position, but beyond that, things become very interesting.
Taking the opposite perspective, which of these six guys deserves the least to be in the alignment a left -wing launcher? Without a doubt, the answer is Jarren Duran. He only strikes .207 with a .587 ops against left -handers this season, and his career numbers are not much better for an average of the stick of .232 and 0.617 OPS. So when Garcia arrives, I think they will need a conversation with Duran about his playing time when faced with a left -handed starter. He just shouldn’t be in there these days.
Oh, and this is where it will become even more annoying. If the Red Sox find themselves in the Tour of the Joker, there is a decent chance that they would face the Yankees or the Astros, who would launch at least one, and perhaps two left-handers in this best of three series. In other words, the alignments used by the Red Sox against Max Fried and Carlos Rodon this weekend in New York may not be the alignments they use against these guys if they face them in October.
If all is well, Garcia could become the third recruit which had a huge impact on the Red Sox season during the section, and the third guy who simply demolishes the left -handers in a programming of some of the most crucial games of the year. If the Front Office does its job, the seats on this list are about to become hot while time cools.
