I'll be honest, I was certainly a Luis García Jr. skeptic, even as recently as earlier this offseason. But reevaluating the numbers has done wonders for my perception of him in the following weeks, and I think I'm back on the Lui train with everyone else heading into 2025.
A big part of that comes from analyzing his projections from several projection models. García seems to be particularly low variance in this regard. ZiPS, a personal favorite of mine, has him set for a 102 wRC+ season (.315 wOBA) with about league-average defense at second base, good for average major league mainstay status. Other projection models seem to agree in this regard, projecting him to a pretty narrow range of 2 to 3 WAR.
That's a small step down from his 2024 performance, but projection models aren't really designed to spit out bold takes. It's not unreasonable to expect García could continue to progress offensively, though without either drawing more walks or hitting for a little more power it seems like it might be hard to push past, say, the 115 wRC+ mark.
His plate approach is still strong, though, and he posted the highest barrel and hard hit rates of his career in 2024 while raising his average launch angle to 8.2 degrees and producing ground balls on fewer than 50% of his balls in play for the first full season of his career. If he maintains this contact profile he's developed in this, his age 25 season, Lui will continue to produce at a level expected of an everyday player.
Statcast Outs Above Average last season graded García as being worth +5 runs moving laterally to his left playing second base. That was the first time he'd even been positive in that category, and it was a 10-run jump from -5 in 2023. There's some noise involved in that, though, and defensive metrics are volatile, often swinging their opinion of a player from year to year. Defensive Runs Saved had him at -5 (a metric that also viewed him positively at second in both 2021 and '22), while Ultimate Zone Rating seemed more neutral. Still, he improved in every metric year over year with 90 more innings on the field from 2023 to 2024.
García was also one of the team's huge beneficiaries to come out of the coaching staff's aggressive baserunning (and basestealing) approach, swiping 22 on the year and being caught 5 times (and picked off just once). Statcast awarded him +1 basestealing run above average, which placed him in the 91st percentile out of over 400 qualified players in that regard. He managed that despite below-league-average sprint speed, meaning that he's especially adept at reading the pitcher's motion, picking the right pitch to go on, and knowing when to return to the base--the latter of which was especially challenging for multiple Nationals baserunners in 2024.
García finding his own in the box and developing a penchant for the stolen base makes him a sneaky good candidate for fantasy this season. Hitting around .270 to .275 will give him plenty of RBI opportunities, and it's not unreasonable to expect another 15+ home run and 20+ stolen base campaign from him. ZiPS has him projected at a 125.3 ADP, 70th among hitters, even in front of teammate and top prospect Dylan Crews. I wouldn't be too worried about him losing much playing time with all the new signings; Davey Martinez is probably still hesitant to let him start against left-handed pitchers (a sentiment I very much disagree with), but that was going to be the case with or without Amed Rosario and Paul DeJong on the roster; if not them, then it would have been somebody else.
Luis García Jr.'s come a long way from the -1.1 fWAR he posted in his first 110 major league games across 2020 and 2021. His strikeout rate jumped a few points in 2024, but that was a sacrifice that needed to be made to double his home run total from 2023 and increase his ISO by over 40 ticks. As the Nationals progress into his arbitration years, the question will become whether or not García is an extension candidate for the team. We'll probably explore that topic more in the coming months. For now, he's a mainstay at second base and one of the better contact-first hitters in baseball.