Yankees prospect Deivi Garcia impresses at Futures Game, gets promoted to Triple-A

The 2019 MLB All-Star Futures Game takes place tonight at Progressive Field in Cleveland, Ohio. You will be able to catch some of the game’s brightest young players and top prospects in one place, including Yankees right-hander Deivi Garcia.

This year the game will pit the two divisions against each other, instead of the previous Team USA against Team World competition. It will also go for just seven innings. These changes probably won’t feel noticeable. The game will still showcase the future of MLB, just in a slightly different medium than we’re used to.

Here are the starting lineups for the evening:

First pitch is scheduled for 7:00 PM ET. You can watch on MLB Network, stream with MLB.com, or listen along to SiriusXM. I’ll also have live updates and thoughts on Garcia’s pitching performance, so stay tuned in this thread.

Live Updates

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Futures Game! We’re underway with a video package showcasing stars who played in previous editions, including several Yankees. Alfonso Soriano and Aaron Judge got a share of the spotlight. Could Deivi Garcia soon join them?

Dennis Martinez and Jim Thome will manager the National League and American League teams respectively, and they exchanged lineup cards. Those two make for fun choices. Their teams are in good hands.

Garcia is on the mound taking his warmup pitches. Jim Callis is talking up his high spin rates, declaring him “hard to hit”.

First pitch to Braves outfield prospect Cristian Pache is a ball, but he jumps ahead 1-2. He punches out Pache with a fastball on the black. “Nasty,” proclaimed Harold Reynolds. Make of that what you will.

Carter Kieboom, a shortstop in the Nationals system, took a curveball for a first pitch strike, then swung through a 95 mph heater. Kieboom has battled, fouling off a lot of tough pitches. Garcia won the bottle, however, as Kieboom flew out to shallow left where Wander Franco reeled it in.

And there you have it, a 14-pitch, 1-2-3 first inning for Garcia as Isan Diaz popped up to end the frame.

The American League went scoreless in the bottom-half of the inning. We’ll see if Garcia gets another inning of work or if it’s a one-and-done day for him.

Justin Dunn takes the mound for the second inning, so that is all for Garcia. I’ll have reactions up shortly, but spoiler alert: he was impressive.

Reactions

Garcia had a strong outing tonight, and his performance may be the second best part of his night. The Yankees announced that the right-hander will join the Triple-A rotation after the All-Star Break.

Many observers have noted that Garcia appears on the fast track. Once a player makes it to Triple-A, they’re a stone’s throw away from the big leagues. A call-up in September (or sooner!) appears more likely now than it did even earlier this morning.

Additionally, Garcia showed off the stuff that grades him out so highly. His fastball generated buzz, and fans got to see that live. He ran his heater up to 96.9 mph, which stands out as quite impressive considering his size and age.

Lastly, Garcia talked about his outing and went through his head when he stood on the mound.

That excitement will carry over to Scranton, where he will face his largest test yet while pitching for the RailRiders.