Adolis determined to return to All-Star form
This story was excerpted from Kennedi Landry's Rangers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
ARLINGTON -- When reflecting on the 2024 season, Adolis García said one thing stood out to him.
¡°I didn¡¯t get a lot of interviews,¡± Garc¨ªa joked to reporters at Rangers Fan Fest.
Well that¡¯s not the only thing, but Garc¨ªa wasn¡¯t ignorant to his own struggles in 2024. The Rangers¡¯ right fielder was coming off an All-Star year in ¡®23, while he was also named the ALCS MVP during the club¡¯s run to the World Series.
He opened ¡®24 still on that high, slashing .301/.359/.570 in April. Then he went on a months-long slump that lasted until the final weeks of the regular season. He rebounded slightly to hit .293/.339/.500 over his last 15 games, but he finished the year with a .684 OPS, the lowest of his Texas tenure by far.
¡°It was a very long year,¡± Garc¨ªa said. ¡°I¡¯ve gotta try to let go of what happened, try to move on and have a good season. You got to learn from what happened and kind of keep going forward. Just keep moving forward.¡±
There¡¯s one other thing to point to when talking about Garc¨ªa¡¯s 2024 season. He, much like the Rangers in their title defense, limped toward the finish line with a left patella tendon strain. He was examined early this offseason by Dr. Daniel Cooper in Dallas and mostly had a normal progression after eight weeks of rehab.
In 2023, Garc¨ªa missed time with a right knee injury and also missed the final two games of the World Series with an oblique injury. Neither setback seemed to hinder him to start the ¡®24 season, but he appeared to be banged up for much of the year, both at the plate and in right field.
But both Garc¨ªa and president of baseball operations Chris Young said they didn¡¯t believe health had anything to do with Garc¨ªa¡¯s struggles throughout the year. But that being said, everybody believes Garc¨ªa is in a better place right now than this time last year.
¡°Players go through good years and bad years,¡± Young said. ¡°Some of that's related to the training and the physical state of where they are in the offseason, and how they come into the season and if your body's not allowing you to do some things that maybe you're accustomed to doing. But he's in a great spot now. He's worked so hard, and I'm really, really excited for him.¡±
This offseason was more about getting his swing back to where it was in 2023, when he collected his second All-Star bid and hit .323/.382/.726 in 15 postseason games.
In 2024, he still hit the ball hard. After all, he¡¯s a big guy, known to flex his muscles when possible. The issue was that he had to make contact first. While the exit velocity numbers remained consistent with his career averages, his chase percentage, whiff percentage and strikeout percentage all got worse from 2023 to ¡®24.
So for the first time in his Rangers tenure, he spent the offseason in the Metroplex and worked out at Globe Life Field.
¡°Yeah, I had a little bit of an extra movement in my swing,¡± Garc¨ªa said. ¡°That's what I worked with the team and hitting coaches to try to eliminate these movements in the swing. ¡ Last year, with the short offseason, there was less time to prepare. That kind of hurt a little bit, not making the playoffs, but this year I¡¯ve had plenty more time to work on things. I feel better prepared. I¡¯m ready to go, and it looks great.¡±