When Pittsburgh Pirates general manager Ben Cherington made an
introductory phone call to Jhostynxon Garcia last week, he asked his new
outfielder what he would like to be called.After a brief bout with the language, Garcia said he is fine
if people refer to him as “The Password.” That makes Pirates manager Don Kelly
happy.“I’m not even going to pretend that I can pronounce his name,”
Kelly said with a smile at the MLB Winter Meetings in Orlando.Garcia got his nickname while playing in the Boston Red Sox’s
organization because of his unique first name. The Pirates are more excited
about the Venezuelan’s potential than what kind of score his name would get in
a game of Scrabble after acquiring him in a five-player trade that sent
right-hander Johan Oviedo to the Red Sox.“Some big-time power that he brings and just the ability to
play all three outfield positions,” Kelly said of what he liked about Garcia.
“Looks like he’s an above-average outfielder. I saw that double that he hit in
his first at-bat down there in winter ball, and the way that he hustled and ran
into second. All the reports we’ve gotten back and the video we’ve gotten to
watch, we’re really excited to add a young project of his caliber to this
team.”Garcia made his MLB debut last August and played in five
games, going 1 for 7 with a double. However, in 114 games last season between
Triple-A Worcester and Double-A Portland, the 22-year-old hit .267/.340/.470
with 21 home runs. Baseball America ranks Garcia as the 76th-best prospect in
baseball.Considering Garcia’s youth, there is an expectation that he
will begin next season at Triple-A Indianapolis. However, the Pirates aren’t
ruling out Garcia being in their opening-day lineup and believe he can help the
major league team sometime next year.“He’s someone who we believe has the skills to contribute in a
lot of different areas of the game,” Cherington said. “He’s got defensive
value. He can run the bases. He’s got power. We’ve seen him really improve
quickly during his time in the minor leagues with the Red Sox. He has a lot of
attributes already that look like a major league player. There are some areas
for him where there’s still some growth ahead of him. We’ll work with him on
that. All the work we did on the background, all the due diligence we did was
really, really positive on the kid, on the worker, on who he is. Just a
combination of all those things. We do think he has a chance to impact 2026.”