Luis Garcia, The Venezuelan Corbin Burnes?

I look at Garcia's progression this year, and there's much to be excited about. His SO/BB ratio is up this year, thanks to cutting down on the walks. His Hits/9 is also down, but I can't help but notice a glaring flaw in his game, his HR/9 rate increasing 50% over last year.

How could this be? He's gained a full mile-per-hour on his four seam fastball, his primary pitch by usage this year, thanks to a mechanical tweak during the postseason. Is it still a liability?



Yes, yes it is.

Then again, he's gotten unlucky this year, he's giving up far fewer "No Doubters" according to Baseball Savant, and his xERA is an improvement from last year, even with a regression in regular ERA. Even for his much maligned fastball, it's still an improvement over his prior, slower offering.

But these struggles remind me of Corbin Burnes, another talented, albiet flawed flamethrower for the Brewers. Burnes had a horrendous 2019, but was incredibly unlucky with the juiced ball homers. His peripherials were still quite solid (3.80 xERA vs 8+ actual ERA). But instead of returning with the same arsenal that got him to the majors, he invented a brand new cutter in the offseason, and the rest is history.

What's frustrating with Garcia, is that he already has an elite cutter. A Cutter so elite that half the team's starters tried to copy it, with Valdez using his new pitch to devastating effect against lefties.

Garcia isn't stupid, he knows this as well, as reflected in his pitch usage.



What's striking is that the Cutter seems to be replacing the wipe-out pitches, not the 4-seam fastball, and his cutter's location would back this up:



This is by no means a bad thing, I'm sure this is a big part as to his decreased walk rate.

Compare that to someone like Corbin Burnes, who throws his cutter as his primary pitch for strikes, with his primary wipe-out pitch thrown in for reference:



Is Garcia's cutter good enough to throw it for strikes, or does he have the ability to do it at all?

In an ideal world, he'd manage that and use his still solid slider and curveball as whiff pitches, dropping the changeup being part of dropping the four-seamer.

Worst case scenario is he wastes a season or more in a failed experiment.

Personally, with Garcia as a potential 5th starter with Lance's return, the Astros can take a risk in trying to turn him into a potential TOR ace.

What do you think? Can Garcia make the adjustment, and is it even worth trying?