The Yankees and former Astros righty Luis Garcia are in agreement on a minor league contract, per the team’s transaction log at MLB.com. It’s presumably a two-year minor league pact, as Garcia underwent his second career Tommy John surgery back in October.
That latest surgery marked another setback in what’s become a grueling stretch of injuries. From 2021-22, Garcia looked to be breaking out as a cornerstone in Houston’s rotation. The 6’1″, 240-pound righty started 28 games and turned in a mid-3.00s ERA in each of those two seasons, combining for 312 2/3 frames with a 3.60 earned run average, a 25.4% strikeout rate and a 7.5% walk rate. Garcia was never a flamethrower, averaging 93.6 mph on his four-seamer even in that two-year peak, but he had good command and generated big whiff rates on his cutter, slider and changeup alike, helping him to an overall 13.2% swinging-strike rate that sat a couple percentage points north of average.
It was more of the same to begin the 2023 season. Garcia notched a flat 4.00 ERA through his first five starts. He punched out 26.4% of his opponents against an 8.7% walk rate. He leaned more heavily on that cutter, his best pitch, through those first 27 innings and posted a career-best 14.5% swinging-strike rate.
Garcia’s sixth start of the 2023 season, however, lasted only one batter. He left with a trainer after eight pitches, citing elbow discomfort. The right-hander was quickly diagnosed with a UCL tear and underwent Tommy John surgery in early May. Astros fans braced for an absence of 12 to 14 months — standard practice for UCL reconstructions of this nature. Garcia’s rehab has since proven anything but standard.
The Astros deemed Garcia “ahead of schedule” in April 2024. He was throwing off a mound about 11 months out from surgery, and things appeared to be tracking well. Garcia set out on a minor league rehab stint in June 2024, but the Astros scaled him back after he struggled to recover between starts. Manager Joe Espada noted in July that Garcia’s elbow was a bit sore, and the team was proceeding with caution. A shutdown of his throwing program lingered into August, and on the 19th of that month the team announced he would not return in 2024, instead shifting his focus to the 2025 season.
The following January, the Astros announced that Garcia would not be ready for Opening Day. He’d continued throwing but was building up very cautiously following the 2024 setbacks. Two months later, Garcia was shut down with renewed elbow discomfort. He opened the season on the 15-day IL. After receiving a second opinion on his elbow, he was diagnosed with inflammation and shut down for another month.
Garcia began another rehab assignment in August 2025, more than two years removed from his surgery. He finally returned from the injured list in September and quickly looked like his old self. His first MLB action in 28 months produced six innings wherein he allowed three runs on just three hits and no walks with six punchouts. His next start lasted only 1 2/3 innings, and Garcia headed straight back to the IL due to elbow discomfort. Less than a month after making that return, he underwent Tommy John surgery again.
By the time he’s healthy enough to even be an option in 2027, Garcia will have made just two MLB appearances in a span of nearly four years. There’s no doubting that he’s a major league-caliber arm, but that lengthy injury layoff makes him a pure wild card for the Yankees moving forward. He’s a nice piece to stash for future depth and an intriguing name for Yankees fans to keep in the back of their mind — even if he won’t factor into the plans this season.
