Colorado Rockies roster move: Rico Garcia claimed by the San Francisco Giants

The Colorado Rockies seem to have a lot of players on the waiver wire as another Rockie was plucked off the waiver wire.

According to William Boor of MLB.com, the San Francisco Giants have claimed right-handed pitcher Rico Garcia off of waivers from the Colorado Rockies.

That waiver claim makes Garcia the fourth Rockie in the past week to be claimed off of waivers. He is also the second Rockies pitcher to be claimed on waivers by the Giants, as they claimed left-handed starting pitcher Tyler Anderson off of waivers last Wednesday, October 30.

The other players that were claimed off waivers last week besides Anderson were left-handed reliever Sam Howard (claimed by the Pittsburgh Pirates) and Pat Valaika (claimed by the Baltimore Orioles).

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Garcia, 25, was drafted by the Rockies in the 30th round of the June 2016 draft. After pitching to a sub-3.00 ERA in 27 games (26 starts) between Advanced-A Lancaster and Double-A Hartford in 2018, he started out the 2019 season in Hartford again.

However, he was promoted to Triple-A Albuquerque after pitching to a 1.85 ERA in 13 starts. In Albuquerque, he struggled in 13 starts as he pitched to a 6.90 ERA, as he allowed more than double the hits that he allowed in the same amount of starts in Hartford.

Due to a flurry of injuries to the Rockies major league pitching staff and the ineffectiveness of many of the remaining staff, Garcia made his MLB debut in late August and made two appearances at the major league level for the Rockies in 2019, including one start.

In six innings in the majors, Garcia pitched to a 10.50 ERA, allowing nine hits, seven runs (all earned), three home runs, and five walks.

Even though he didn’t pitch well in his very short stint in the majors, the waiver claim of him dips more into the Rockies depth in pitching.

In the past week or so, the pitching depth on the 40-man roster has gone down a decent amount with the claims of Howard, Anderson, and Garcia along with Chad Bettis becoming a free agent and Tim Melville being outrighted back to Albuquerque.