Giants prospect Aramis Garcia on improvements and adjustments

Aramis Garcia, drafted in the 2nd round of the 2014 Amateur Draft by the San Francisco Giants, feels like he’s made a lot of improvements on his defense with the San Jose Giants.

The 24-year-old catcher currently has a 31 percent CS%, throwing out 17 runners while allowing 37 and in 347 chances, he’s made 305 putouts, 38 assists, and four errors. Garcia is also ranked as the 13th best prospect in the Giants organization by MLB Pipeline, while Baseball America ranked him ninth pre-season.

Garcia says he spent his offseason focusing on his defense, and that’s one of the things he spends a majority of his time working on.

Part of being a catcher, he says, is playing a role in a pitcher’s development. It’s also a part that Garcia enjoys.

“You gotta learn how to work with guys and you learn their strengths and their weaknesses and you just try to help them get better,” Garcia says. “I think that part of catching is probably the coolest part, just the relationships you create with your pitchers.”

Garcia made the jump from Class-A Augusta to High-A San Jose in 2015. In 2016, he started in San Jose, but missed significant time due to a facial fracture and only appeared in 47 games between San Jose and the Giants’ rookie league team.

This season, Garcia missed part of April due to his second concussion in the last two years. He says thankfully, he’s been able to recover from it well.

“I haven't had any setbacks or anything like that,” Garcia says. “Obviously, it's hard whenever you get one and whenever you land on the DL for anything. You just try and stay positive and make it through.”

Garcia was named a Cal League North Division All-Star in June and participated in the Home Run Derby, where he advanced to the second round. As of writing, Garcia is hitting .273/.317/.506 with 13 home runs.

Slumps happen from time to time for any hitter, and Garcia is no exception. He says when it happens, you have to keep it as simple as possible.

“I think probably the first thing is not to freak out,” he says. “You just gotta believe the kind of hitter that you are and that you're going to be able to get out of it.”

As a prospect, he says what puts him at an advantage is his desire to win.

“That's one thing I wanted since the day I got drafted,” Garcia says. “I wanted to win and I wanted to get drafted by a team that would give me the best opportunity to win and obviously, San Francisco—with the history that we have here and the tradition that we've built—it's a winning organization.”

With the second half of the California League season in full swing, he says his goals include just building off of the first half of the season.

“Just keep going out there, having fun, just trying to help win my team win and get San Jose into the playoffs.”