It’s hard not to group Keibert Ruiz and Luis García Jr. together. Both have represented the failure of the late Rizzo administration in its obsession with acquiring hitters that swing way too much. At the start of the season, it was well expected that the new Toboni-led Nats would eventually sweep them away as part of overturning the roster to fit the modern game. Instead, in consecutive months, Ruiz and García have exploded into productive, reliable members of the best offense in baseball, keeping them in the hunt for a surprise playoff bid.
I wrote about Ruiz last month already and how the Nats focused on making a very small change, swinging harder at fastballs, to give him a small edge despite his limited capabilities. As I said a month ago Ruiz was likely overperforming that change and in the last couple weeks he’s come back to earth a bit. With how similar Ruiz and García have been offensively I thought something similar might be happening for García too, but that is not the case. García isn’t just swinging harder at fastballs, he’s swinging harder at everything, and hitting it harder too.
García is swinging the bat 1.1 miles per hour faster than he was in 2025 which has led to a 2 MPH increase in his 90th percentile exit velocity up to 107.3. For those of you who do not make a habit of looking at exit velocities that’s fast, like top 50 in MLB fast. Luis García Jr. is now the second hardest-hitting Washington National behind James Wood. And as Wood has shown, big power can cover up a lot of flaws in your approach at the plate.
When I briefly covered García in May he was already showing the power, but I discounted him at the time because he was swinging 56% of the time and making a lot of contact with pitches outside of the strike zone at 74%, both career highs. Clearly I was being a bit hasty. Since then, he’s kept the power up, while bringing his swing rates closer to his career norms.
So why is he hitting the ball harder? Some of it might be natural development that was a little delayed by being in MLB at such a young age. García is still only 26, an age at which many players are just entering their peak. Some of it could be through improved training and coaching methods Blake Butera and his staff have brought. Some of it might be because he’s no longer facing left-handed pitchers.
In 2024 and 2025 about 21.5% of García’s plate appearances were against left-handed pitchers, this year that number is down to 11.7 percent. As a left-handed batter, García naturally has had some weaknesses against left-handed pitching, but the extent of the problems is fairly large. In his career, despite swinging at about the same rate against both, he’s made less contact against left-handers (83% vs. 88% against RHP) and when he’s made contact it’s been weaker (85.7 MPH average exit velocity vs. 89.3 MPH against RHP).
Reducing his worse plate appearances by 10 percentage points is obviously going to make an impact on his improved exit velocity, but it is not the whole story. Against right-handed pitchers, García’s exit velocity has improved from an average of 90.8 MPH in 2025 to 92.4 this season with an equivalent 1 MPH increase in bat speed. This is not just addition by subtraction, he’s legitimately swinging and hitting the ball harder.
All together this makes García a unicorn in MLB today. Among qualified batters with a swing rate above 50% and a contact rate above 80% García’s 90th percentile EV is the fastest by 1.7 MPH. If you lower the contact rate to 75%, García still comes out on top, this time by just 0.9 MPH. Now you may be saying “that’s unfair, his contact rate is inflated by pitches out of the strike zone.” And you’re right, if we limit it to swing rate above 50% and in-zone contact rate above 85% García is not in first, he’s in second, about 1.5 MPH behind Michael Harris II and 1.7 MPH ahead of third.
Hitting is a game of tradeoffs, more contact for less power, more power for more whiffs, etc. You’re not supposed to be able to swing all the time, make contact every time you swing, and crush the ball every time you make contact. Corey Seager, a player so famed for his ability to only, but frequently, swing at pitches he can crush that he has a stat named after him for it, is hitting the ball 0.1 MPH faster than García. That’s absurd.
Shockingly, I think it means these changes are legitimate. While these last two weeks are still a hot streak, the fall off is not going to be steep. His wRC+ is 132, his DRC is 130. That level of agreement is coming from a couple of fluky home runs randomly bunched together. That’s just a good hitter settling into his new normal.
Earlier in the season it was easy to be skeptical of a team with two good hitters, zero good pitchers, and a lot of filler. But García now gives the Nats a third hitter equivalent to Wood and CJ Abrams. With Ruiz, Daylen Lile and Curtis Mead playing competent supporting roles, this is looking like a lineup you can believe in. Now the only current National who has shared a field with Max Scherzer, Ryan Zimmerman and Juan Soto may be jumpstarting their next era of playoff contention.
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