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Why Adolis Garcia is Rangers’ biggest bargain of their big-budget roster

Garcia is off to another hot start, playing a fine emergency center field and upstaging stars in front of him.

ARLINGTON – Over the last couple of winters, the Rangers went viral by spending a half-billion dollars renovating their middle infield and another $300 million reupholstering the rotation.

Yet the biggest bang for their buck remains the guy they got for the cost of a used pick-up.

The guy DFA’d by two organizations, including the Rangers.

The guy a former teammate called a “superstar.”

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Or with:

The guy most likely to make you catch your breath.

The guy Bruce Bochy calls “Adoli.”

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Like there’s only one.

Which, come to think of it, might be right at that.

Adolis Garcia is off to another hot start, cutting back on his strikeouts, playing a fine emergency center field and upstaging the stars in front of him who make more in one week than he does in a year. In Wednesday’s 5-2 win over the Orioles, he jump-started Jacob deGrom’s bounce-back with a run-scoring, opposite-field double, then later ripped a single to left and scored on Josh Jung’s two-run homer.

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Adolis not only leads the team with eight hits, his strikeout rate, the bugaboo that got him bounced in St. Louis and has created doubts about his potential ever since, is down from 27.9% last year to 20.8%.

Yeah, sure, it’s a small sample size. So is your attention span.

Try to focus.

“He’s really worked hard on controlling the strike zone better,” Bochy said after Wednesday’s win. “That’s shown up in this homestand. Big hit to get us going.”

Like anyone who appreciates a good story, Bochy is a fan.

“I knew he was a good athlete,” the Rangers’ manager said. “I didn’t realize how good he was. You put him in center, he does a great job; right field, he does a great job. Runs the bases well.”

In fact, few Rangers have ever done so many things as well. Only two have hit at least 25 home runs, 30 doubles, driven in 100 runs and stolen 25 bases in a season. Adolis did it in only his second full year. Alfonso Soriano was the other, and he was no match on defense.

Garcia’s flaws are well-documented: chases pitches out of the strike zone, draws too few walks and doesn’t make enough contact. Even if he made progress on those fronts last year, ZiPS contends he’ll do well to maintain status quo this season, projecting a slash line of .248/.295/.459/.754.

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The good news is that at least one geek may be a convert. In a February story for FanGraphs, under the headline, “In Which I Talk Myself Into Adolis Garcia,” Michael Baumann wrote that El Bombi “might be the player upon whom their success hinges.”

Baumann based his case on the underappreciated aspects of Adolis’ game as well as reservations about the Rangers’ lineup in general, questions that may have been answered since his story was published. He only nodded at the possibility of Jung’s impact and couldn’t account for Robbie Grossman, a late addition.

Putting better hitters around Adolis will make him better. For one thing, it won’t be as easy to pitch around him, which should help that chase rate. He also may not feel as much pressure to hit a five-run homer.

In his research, Baumann noted that what makes Adolis better than the numbers indicate is that, when he makes contact, good things usually happen. His barrel rate was 18th among 130 qualified hitters; his hard-hit rate, 21st, snug between the likes of Freddie Freeman and Juan Soto.

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Chances are that might be the last time Adolis is mentioned in the same sentence with the stars above. He’s 30. The list of players who built All-Star resumes after that age is short, though Nelson Cruz comes to mind.

Adolis doesn’t seem bitter that any chance at stardom came so late. He knows he took a circuitous route. Growing up in Cuba, he was a Greco-Roman wrestler before following his brother, Adonis, into baseball. Once Adolis defected, and after a quick detour to Japan, he got a shot with the Cardinals, who, as it turned out, had too many prospects seemingly as good or better, and at half the whiff rate.

Jon Daniels got him for chump change, then designated him for assignment just so they could sign Mike Foltynewicz. Think about that. Daniels bet that no other clubs would notice, or care, and he was right.

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Now Adolis hits cleanup and fills in center or right with the same aplomb. He says he’s probably more comfortable in right field, if only because he’s played there more often. He insists he doesn’t care which field he plays. Just like hitting fourth. No pressure, he said.

Do you feel like you’re better in those moments, Adolis?

“Yeah, could be,” he said, smiling. “Every time I’m just hoping to win the game.

“That’s how I just play.”

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His English is better this year, his strikeouts down and he looks for his pitch these days instead of chasing someone else’s. Keep this up, and he’ll be an All-Star again. Even if he can’t, he’s still the biggest bargain on a big-budget roster. Still the same Adolis, the one and only.

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