Christian Garcia, BA’s #20 Int’l League Prospect

Lost in the big club’s playoff run late last week was the announcement from Baseball America for its International League Top 20 prospects. Coming in at #20 was the formerly enigmatic Christian Garcia.

Garcia was first spotted here last August, a line item if were he not a former New York Yankee farmhand (hence the post, natch). After a stellar two-level 2012 (combined 2-1, 0.86 with 21 saves), Garcia was first named to the Arizona Fall League, then pitched well enough as a September call-up to earn a postseason roster spot.

From the BA Scouting Report:

Garcia brings frontline-starter stuff to the back of the bullpen… starting with a 92-95 mph fastball that touches 97 regularly. His curveball was better earlier in his career but still has late break and some power in the low 80s. His changeup has late sink and has become his best secondary pitch. He throws all three pitches from the same arm slot and with similar arm speed.

It should be noted that while there’s chatter about Garcia returning to the rotation, the Nationals carefully monitored his workload in 2012, working him on back-to-back nights just twice. Much will obviously depend on how things turn out in the offseason, though the guess here and now is that Garcia will stick in the ‘pen where he can contribute in 2013 in DC versus going to back to starting where he’d have to be stretched out in Syracuse over several weeks (i.e. how Ryan Perry was dropped down a level when the decision was made to make him a starter this past summer).