Adolis Garcia is doing something totally different with the Phillies than with the Rangers

Adolis Garcia is a totally different hitter with the Philadelphia Phillies.

Any Texas Rangers who watched his star years in the Lone Star State would be quite surprised by this development.

Garcia is still strong and dangerous, of course. He doesn't look all that different, aside from the change in uniform.

But one part of his approach has changed drastically: Garcia is hardly ever swinging at the first pitch.

With the Rangers in 2025, he swung at the first pitch 33.2% of the time.

This season with the Phillies, it's about half -- 16.4% of the time.

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That 16.8 percentage point drop in first pitch swing percentage is the third-most dramatic in baseball: Only Spencer Torkelson (-21.4) and Xavier Edwards (-20.0) have dropped their first-pitch swing rate more.

And for Garcia, it's even more dramatic, because in 2024, he swung at 41.6% of the first pitches he saw.

Whether or not it's making a major difference is harder to say. Garcia is batting .231 so far with a .686 OPS, just about in line with each of the past two seasons.

He is both whiffing less and chasing less, so maybe his discipline has essentially forced him to focus in on a very specific first-pitch offering rather than just swinging early for the heck of it.

It's still a pretty early sample size, so his early swings could still trend back toward his career norms, or his lack of early swings could start to push his other numbers in a certain direction.

For now, it's just noteworthy, and maybe it'll have meaning as the season moves along.

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