Careers cut short: Nomar Garciaparra

Nomar Garciaparra was an elite shortstop with the Boston Red Sox from 1996 to 2004 who hit for both average and power whose career was looking good until injuries started in his 30s and he never reached the same production again aside from his 2006 season with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Photo by the Boston Red Sox and Major League Baseball.

Jack Butler

In the 1991 MLB June Amateur Draft, the Milwaukee Brewers selected a 17-year-old Nomar Garciaparra, however, he did not sign and went to play baseball at Georgia Tech. During his Junior season, Garciaparra had a new coach, Danny Hall, where the shortstop had his best collegiate season batting .427 with 26 doubles, 11 triples, 16 home runs, 73 RBI, and 33 stolen bases. Garciaparra along with catcher and future Red Sox teammate Jason Varitek led the Yellow Jackets to the College World Series Championship Game which they lost 13-5 to the Oklahoma Sooners. With Garciaparra's fantastic 1994 season, the Boston Red Sox drafted Garciaparra with the 12th pick of the 1st round.

Garciaparra quickly worked through the organization’s minor league system, to make his major league debut on August 31, 1996, versus the Oakland Athletics in which he lined out in his only at-bat in the 8th. He would get 86 more at-bats to compile 4 home runs, and 16 RBI with a .241 BA as the latter mark was the lowest in a single season in his career. In his first full campaign in 1997, Garciaparra became a fan favorite in Boston after 209 hits, 44 doubles, 30 home runs, 98 RBI, and 22 stolen bases while hitting .306. This breakout earned him his first of 6 AL All-Star selections, an eighth-place finish in the AL MVP vote, the AL Rookie of the Year, and his only Silver Slugger.

The Red Sox young shortstop had another stellar year in 1998 with 195 hits, 37 doubles, 35 home runs, 122 RBI, and hit .325. Garciaparra took Boston to the American League Division Series where they stole Game 1 over the Cleveland Indians 11-3, but dropped the last three games, including the last two games by 1 run. Nomar hit .333 with 3 home runs and 11 RBI in his first taste of October baseball. Following the postseason, Garciaparra finished second in the AL MVP voting behind Juan González who had another monster season with the Texas Rangers.

1999 began Garciaparra’s masterful two seasons at the plate where he captured back-to-back AL Batting Titles and finished 9th or better in the AL MVP vote. In his age 25 seasons, he collected 190 hits, 41 doubles 35 home runs, 104 RBI, and league-leading .357 batting average. Garciaparra hit .406 with 4 doubles, 4 home runs, and 9 RBI in 9 postseason games – 4 in ALDS vs CLE and 5 in ALCS vs NYY. In 2000, he had 197 hits, 51 doubles, 21 home runs, 96 RBI, and led the league with a .372 batting average which is the fourth highest single-season mark in Red Sox history.

Garciaparra had an injury ridden 2001 season as he only played in 21 games due to a wrist injury that greatly impacted his career…well not right away. He came back in 2002 and 2003 and looked like the Garciaparra of 1999 and 2000 to average 198 hits, 26 home runs, and 112 RBI with a .306 batting average during his age 28-29 seasons. In 2003, Boston reached Game 7 of the ALCS where they fell in the 11th on Aaron Boone’s walk-off home run that sent Yankee Stadium into a frenzy. Garciaparra hit just .246 with 1 double, a triple, a lone RBI, and 10 strikeouts in 12 postseason games.

In the offseason, Garciaparra was unhappy with Red Sox management wanting to trade him for superior talent instead of giving him a new contract but came back without an extension in 2004. Unfortunately, an Achilles’ injury sidelined him until June 9 when he returned to the Boston lineup collecting a hit in 2 at-bats. Garciaparra played in 37 more games for manager Terry Francona and had a total of 50 hits, 7 doubles, 5 home runs, 21 RBI, and a .321 batting mark. The problem wasn’t with his bat but rather his fielding ability as since coming back from the Achilles’, his Range Factor/9Inn went down from a 4.31 in 2003 to a 3.59 in just over 30 starts at short. General Manager Theo Epstein thought long and hard and decided to trade him as part of a 4-team package that sent Nomar Garciaparra and Matt Murton to the Chicago Cubs. Boston received Doug Mientkiewicz from the Minnesota Twins and Orlando Cabrera from the Montreal Expos. Mientkiewicz came in defensively to finish games at first while Cabrera took over shortstop and both became important pieces for the Red Sox down the stretch and on their way to winning the 2004 World Series.

Garciaparra played in just 85 of a possible 219 games with the Cubs where in 2004 he kept battling his Achilles’ to hit .297 with 4 home runs and 20 RBI while in 2005, a torn left groin placed him onto the disabled in late April. He returned on August 5 to finish the season with 9 home runs, and 30 RBI with a .283 batting average. Following the Cubs' 79-83 season, finishing 4th in the NL Central, Garciaparra was granted free agency and signed with Los Angeles Dodgers to play for his hometown team. He had a resurgence with the Dodgers, collecting 142 hits, 20 home runs, 93 RBI, and hit .303 earning his final All-Star selection and guiding his club to the postseason where they fell in a sweep by the hands of the New York Mets in the NLDS. After the season, Garciaparra’s wonderful campaign after coming back from multiple injuries earned him the 2006 NL Comeback Player of the Year. Garciaparra remained healthy the next year but lost his power to only hit 7 home runs and drive in 53 runs in 121 games

Nomar experienced more injury problems in 2008 that resulted in him just playing in 55 out of 162 games to hit .264 with 8 home runs and 28. He finished his career with the Oakland Athletics and suited up for 65 contests to hit 3 bombs and drive in 16 runs. Garciaparra retired at the age of 36 whose career is a major what if he stayed healthy during his prime case, however, we don’t know what would have happened. On the bright side, we need to remember how amazing Anthony Nomar Garciaparra was from 1997-2003 with the Red Sox.

Sources

Baseball Reference. 2022. 1994 College World Series. [Data File]. Retrieved April 18, 2022, from https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/1994_College_World_Series

Baseball Reference. 2022. Nomar Garciaparra Stats. [Data File]. Retrieved April 18, 2022, from https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/garcino01.shtml

Cavadi, Wayne. (2019, May 30). We picked Georgia Tech's baseball's all-time starting nine. NCAA. Retrieved April 18, from https://www.ncaa.com/news/baseball/article/2019-05-30/we-picked-georgia-tech-baseballs-all-time-starting nine#:~:text=Georgia%20Tech's%20Nomar%20Garciaparra!&text=That%20said%2C%20Garciaparra's%20ridiculous%201994,RBI%2C%20and%2033%20stolen%20bases.