Adolis Garcia

Texas Rangers star Adolis Garcia is having one hell of a post-season.  He's currently hitting .357 with eight home runs and 22 RBIs in 13 games so far, including a sayonara home run in Game One of the World Series last night.  Garcia is from Cuba originally - he defected in late 2016 and signed with the St Louis Cardinals.  The Cardinals sold him to Texas a couple years later and he became a star in his first season as a regular in 2021, hitting 31 home runs with 91 RBIs (and 194 strikeouts).

I'm not sure how much mention this has gotten in the postseason telecasts (I'm not watching the US broadcasts) but Garcia briefly played in Japan in 2016.  As part of the same program that has allowed other Cuban players such as Frederich Cepeda, Alfredo Despaigne and Livan Moinelo to play in Japan without defecting, Garcia spent part of that season with the Yomiuri Giants.  He didn't do particularly well, hitting .234 with four home runs in 28 games with the farm team and going hitless with three strikeouts in seven plate appearances over four games with the ichi-gun squad.  He joined the team in June but was let go in August - it looks like he defected in France on his way back to Cuba from Japan.

The fact that he played in Japan raises the possibility of an Oscar Colas-type situation where there'd be some Japanese baseball cards of him.  Except there aren't.  He didn't appear in any BBM or Calbee issues that year and Epoch didn't do any Giants-related sets that year (it'd be two years before Epoch started doing their "flagship" 400+ card NPB set).  Topps, of course, didn't have an NPB license until 2021.  It's possible that he had a team-issued card made by the Giants themselves but no such card has surfaced.  I made some enquiries of Japanese card collectors on Twitter (well, one anyway) and no one has seen any NPB cards of him.  

It'd be cool if BBM or Epoch included him in an OB set at some point although it's probably unlikely to happen anytime soon.  I'm still waiting for the first Alphonso Soriano OB card.