Seattle Mariners Throwback Thursday: Freddy Garcia

In this week’s Throwback Thursday, let’s take a trip back to the late ’90s and look at a young prospect the Seattle Mariners received in a trade, Freddy Garcia.

It was 1998, and the Seattle Mariners were coming off of two postseason appearances in a three-year period. Unfortunately for both the team and fans alike, 1998 wasn’t at that same level of competition for the team, and they had fallen out of the race by the all-star break, sitting at 48-60 at the end of July.

Seattle Mariners

This was a small part of the Seattle Mariners deciding that they were going to trade Randy Johnson. At 34 years old, with the disc issue in his back not that far gone, the team decided it was the correct time to trade away the pitcher with a 4.33 ERA on the season. We won’t get into what he did for the next 4.5 seasons… mostly cause I don’t want to be sad.

Instead, we can take a look at what the Mariners got back in the trade. I’ve already gone back to look at the other notable piece in the trade that was Carlos Guillen, so let’s look instead at Freddy Garcia.

He started the following season in the starting rotation, just 22-years-old. Right away, it looked like the Seattle Mariners might’ve gotten a special pitcher in the deal. Tallying just over 200 innings, Garcia finished not just 2nd in Rookie of the Year (losing to some guy named Carlos Beltran), but also finished 9th in Cy Young voting.

He ran into a bit of a sophomore slump the next season, but that should’ve been expected after tossing 200 innings in the majors.

If you’ve been paying attention to the years, you know that his third season falls in line with the magical 2001 season for the Seattle Mariners. Leading the league in innings pitched (238), HR per 9 (0.6), and ERA (3.05), he would finish 3rd in Cy Young voting that season. You could argue he should’ve won, as his ERA, WHIP, and ERA+ were all better than both Roger Clemens, who won, and Mark Mulder, who finished in second.

It would be Freddy’s best season as a Mariner, and pretty insightful as to what you could expect from sweaty Freddy. Lots of innings, not a ton of walks or strikeouts, and a respectable ERA. Remember, unless you were Pedro Martinez or the Big Unit, your ERA was likely going to be well above 3. His ERA in 6+ years with the team sat at 3.89, a bit more than 0.50 runs per game better than the average pitcher.

The more often you go back and look at the players from the mid to late ’90s, the easier it is to see why there are so many fans in their 30’s who love the Seattle Mariners.

You’re young, impressionable, and have great memories as a child of so many great Mariners players, and Freddy Garcia is one of them.

He would have some good years after he left Seattle, notably 2005 with the Chicago White Sox and 2011 with the New York Yankees. The best part of his career was his time in Seattle, and his averages show why he was worthy of sitting near the top of their rotation.

6.5 innings a start, 3.89 ERA, 1.299 WHIP, 8.5 H/9, 3.2 BB/9, 6.7 K/9, and an ERA+ of 114. ERA+ can be helpful, as it essentially gives you a barometer for measuring against the league average, meaning Freddy was 14% than the league average for his ERA. If just a Mariner, it would tie for 232nd all-time, an impressive ranking.

Although it would’ve been nice to see him stick around longer, Freddy Garcia followed the Mariners’ trend of being allowed to leave (or not being wanted back by management) in free agency or trade. For Garcia, he was traded in 2004 for Mike Morse, Miguel Olivo, and Jeremy Reed.

I’ll always have good memories of Freddy Garcia, and as most high schoolers around that time could admit to, we didn’t mind having sweat rings around our baseball caps thanks to Freddy.