Greene and Lodolo on BA Top 100 List (76&77)

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Originally Posted by BillDoran

Jose Garcia has had one mediocre-to-bad season (81 wRC+ in 2018), and one very good season in Daytona (131 wRC+), followed by a terrible showing in the Arizona Fall League (albeit in 69 PA). There are questions about his ability to field the position (~.940 fielding percentage in 2018 and 2019) and he still has to prove he can take a walk. He's a fine prospect, but some of the gas around here is homerism, and some of it is the state of the farm system.

Comparing him to Jeter Downs feels like a ceiling/floor debate, and I would expect most around here to prefer the home team. But most of the national rankings are going to have Downs ahead of Garcia, and there's a reason for that.

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Barry Larkin had 19 errors and 29 errors in season 1 and 2 of full time action. I wouldn't read much into the fielding % at this point.

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Originally Posted by BillDoran

Jose Garcia has had one mediocre-to-bad season (81 wRC+ in 2018), and one very good season in Daytona (131 wRC+), followed by a terrible showing in the Arizona Fall League (albeit in 69 PA). There are questions about his ability to field the position (~.940 fielding percentage in 2018 and 2019) and he still has to prove he can take a walk. He's a fine prospect, but some of the gas around here is homerism, and some of it is the state of the farm system.

Comparing him to Jeter Downs feels like a ceiling/floor debate, and I would expect most around here to prefer the home team. But most of the national rankings are going to have Downs ahead of Garcia, and there's a reason for that.

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Let me clear this up real quick: Literally no one who has watched Jose Garcia play baseball has a question about his ability to field the shortstop position.

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Originally Posted by HammerTime

Barry Larkin had 19 errors and 29 errors in season 1 and 2 of full time action. I wouldn't read much into the fielding % at this point.

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On top of that, the quality of the infield can have an impact on fielding percentage.

Garcia may well be a Gold Glove shortstop going forward, but a recent MLB.com story has it that most organizations had him pegged as a second-baseman coming out of Cuba. And whether it's been bad infields or learning curve or comparisons to Barry Larkin, the reality is he commits too many errors at the position right now.

And back to the original point, despite whatever sour grapes may remain around here, most rankings have Jeter Downs ahead of Jose Garcia at this time. Of course, rankings are chockful of biases, guesses and are flat-out wrong more often than not, but outside of a Reds message board, thinking Downs is better than Garcia isn't a particularly controversial idea.

I realize we have few prospects to be excited about. I know it's no fun to think about good prospects we gave up in a trade, but everybody rushing to defend Garcia doesn't make him a better prospect. Hope he rips the cover off the ball this year (and turns into Omar Vizquel on defense).