San Francisco Giants: What Should the Giants do with Aramis Garcia?

Aramis Garcia impressed in his brief time with the San Francisco Giants last season.

Garcia has continued to impress this spring. He quickly captured the attention of new San Francisco Giants executive, Farhan Zaidi:

Garcia batted .286 with a very round .800 OPS as he debuted for the Giants last September. However, September stats can be misleading. Since he has posted a .733 OPS throughout his minor league career, some regression is expected.

In addition to this, Garcia did strike out in 48% of his major league at-bats so there are definitely some red flags despite a very successful stint.

Garcia’s primary position is catcher, but he has experience at first base as well. Beyond that, Garcia does not have experience at any other position. But, maybe he should add another glove to his resume.

As a catcher, Garcia is in between a rock and a hard place. He is the backup to the catcher of today in Buster Posey and seemingly the backup to the catcher of tomorrow in Joey Bart. It is difficult to envision him getting extensive work behind the dish with the Giants except in the case of injuries.

Garcia does not have to forget about catcher altogether. Rather, he should see whether he could competently handle second or third base. Catchers have moved from behind the dish in the past, so it would not be a completely unprecedented move.

However, if Garcia’s bat continues to show anything close to what he produced last season, then the Giants will need to figure out a way to keep his bat in the lineup.

Second base, in particular, might be a position where he could get at-bats behind Joe Panik. Panik is having a nice spring, but this nice spring needs to translate to the regular season. In addition to this, Panik struggled badly against left-handed pitching last season. Garcia could become a natural platoon complement.

At this point in time, Garcia does not seem to be actively learning a new position. He will likely start the season in Sacramento, but that might be the perfect opportunity to get the ball rolling on the project.

Austin Barnes‘ primary position is catcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers. However, he continues to get some work at second base as well. This could be a template for Garcia.

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It is not necessarily a suggestion for a position change, but rather an experiment to see what other positions Garcia can handle in addition to first base and catcher.

The idea is to find ways to get Garcia’s bat in the lineup if the power he showed last season was in any way sustainable. Since Zaidi appreciates versatility, it would not be surprising to see the San Francisco Giants executive broach this topic with Garcia at some point in the future.