With the 2025 Texas Rangers season having come to an end, we shall be, over the course of the offseason, taking a look at every player who appeared in a major league game for the Texas Rangers in 2025.
Today we are looking at Adolis Garcia.
So, yeah, not a good year for Adolis Garcia. He was really good in 2023, both in the regular season and in the playoffs — Adolis had an 1108 OPS in the 2023 postseason* — and was a major driver of the team’s success that year. The Rangers do not win the World Series without Adolis Garcia.
* That is the eighth highest career postseason OPS ever for players with at least 60 postseason plate appearances. Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth are tied for first, each with a 1214 OPS, which is kind of nuts I think. The others, in order, are Troy Glaus, Chris Young, Billy Hatcher, Hank Aaron, and the Junior Tatis.
2023 seemed to be a bit of an aberration even at the time. An 836 OPS and 127 OPS+ comfortably exceeded the 749 OPS and 106 OPS+ he had put up the previous two seasons. He drew walks at an above-average rate for the first time of his career, though, boosting his OBP to more respectable levels, and his exit velocities, hard hit rate and barrel rate were elite. It suggested that maybe there was a real improvement in plate discipline, less swinging at pitches that shouldn’t be swung at, a development in his skill set that might be sustainable, even though, at age 30, he was past the normal age range when hitters are in their prime.
The development, as it turned out, was not sustainable. Garcia’s chase rate regressed to previous levels in 2024, his walk rate dropped by 25%, and he looked like the guy we saw in 2021, his rookie season, but without the elite defense.
Heading into 2025, just about everyone agreed that the Rangers needed a bounceback season from Garcia. Texas needed Garcia to be the impact bat in the middle of the order he was in 2023, or at least in 2022 (112 OPS+ and wRC+), for the offense to really click.
That didn’t happen, of course. Garcia did post the lowest K rate of his career, at 24.7%, so that was good. But his walk rate also declined by about 30%, to 5.1% — less than half of the 10.3% walk rate he put up in 2023. The exit velocity, hard hit rate and barrel rate were all still well above average, but his barrel rate was 30% lower than it was in 2023, down to where it was in 2021.
The problem with players with the type of profile Adolis Garcia has — lots of strikeouts, not many walks, dependency on loud contact — is that the margins are very fine. A drop off in the number of top end events you have is going to have a disproportionate impact on your overall results, because you have so many Ks and are getting so little contribution to your overall performance from walks.
When you are putting up elite quality of contact numbers, you can strike out a lot and not walk a lot and still be very productive offensively. In 2023, Garcia had a .451 wOBA and .471 xwOBA on all balls in play, which is outstanding. That dropped in 2025 to .354 and .396, compared to the league as a whole putting up a .365 wOBA and .380 xwOBA. Those sorts of numbers on balls in play aren’t bad, but if you’re in the bottom quarter in strikeouts and walks, its not good enough to make you a good hitter.
One thing that is kind of funny about Garcia’s 2025 season…you may recall that in 2024, there was much discussion about his struggles with fastballs. Garcia was at -14 runs against fastballs in 2024, one of the worst performances against fastballs in the majors. He didn’t destroy fastballs in 2023, but he was fine against them, average, more or less. Getting Garcia to not be useless against fastballs was a big priority in 2025.
Well, Garcia was fine, more or less, against fastballs in 2025. He was more or less average against them. His .332 xwOBA against fastballs was very close to his .339 xwOBA against fastballs in 2023.
He struggled, though, against everything else. Garcia was literally below average — at least 0.5 runs below average in 2025 per 100 pitches seen — against every pitch except the fastball in 2025.
One is reminded of the kid who brought home a report card with four Fs and a D, whose dad told him his problem was that he was focusing too much on the one class.
Weirdly, after a dramatic drop in his fielding metrics in 2024, Garcia put up quality defensive metrics in 2025. Garcia’s DRS, which had never been lower than +6 from 2021-23, plummeted to -5 in 2024, then jumped to +16 in 2025 — the highest of any right fielder in 2025. His FRV — the Statcast defensive numbers — went from +22 over three seasons from 2021-23 to -11 last year, then back up to +2 in 2025.
With two straight down offensive seasons, a likely arbitration salary figure north of $10 million, and free agency looming after 2026 regardless, Adolis seems to be a near-lock to be non-tendered. Even if the arbitration salary were not excessive, one would think that the Rangers would likely be looking to move on from Adolis, given that right field is seems to be the lowest-hanging fruit among the position spots for the Rangers to either get better or get younger and cheaper. He will likely end up on a one year deal with a second-division club in 2026, looking to get his career back on track.
Its possible, I guess. 2025 was his age 32 season, the same age Nelson Cruz, who Adolis has often been compared to, was in his final season in Texas. Cruz took a one year deal with the Orioles that offseason, had one of his best offensive seasons, and then went on to have a late-career renaissance that saw him put up a 147 OPS+ and a 30.2 bWAR in his age 33-40 seasons.
More likely, though, the contact issues are going to be too much to overcome, and Adolis Garcia will be out of the league in two or three years.
It is unfortunate for Adolis Garcia’s time in Texas to come to such an ignominious end. He was fun to watch, he played with passion, he was great in the championship year, and Astros fans hated him.
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