Luis García Jr. knew exactly what he wanted to do the first time the Bleacher Creatures chanted his name. Having grown up a Yankees fan, the New York-born, Dominican Republic-raised 26-year-old didn’t need to be schooled by his new teammates about the “roll call” that he should expect following his Aug. 2 trade from Washington. In his mind, he could still picture Robinson Canó’s megawatt smile as the second baseman turned around to acknowledge the fans in right field, or The Captain waving a glove at them from his shortstop position to quell the chants of “Der-ek! Je-ter!”
García likes having fun with his teammates, and one of his favorite moves this year after scorching a baseball to the far reaches of a ballpark is to look toward them in the dugout and fire an imaginary missile from an invisible rocket launcher on his shoulder. “In Dominican, the name is like bazooka,” he explains with a smile. When he saw his name penciled in at first base for his Aug. 3 Yankees debut, he figured the Bleacher Creatures would get a kick out of it if he launched an air howitzer their way, too.
Life comes at you fast during trade season, though. One moment, you’re in Atlanta, in the middle of your seventh big league season with the only organization you’ve ever known. Then your phone rings, and Nationals general manager Anirudh Kilambi is telling you to get to New York as quickly as possible because you’ve been traded to the Yankees. Your head is still spinning the next day when you trot out to first base and your new teammate, Cam Schlittler, has fallen behind the first batter of the game, 3-0, and suddenly you hear “Gar-cí-a! Gar-cí-a!” getting louder and louder, and you’re stunned to realize the time has already come, so you just turn and give a quick point to the bleachers.
“Maybe he adds a little flavor to that at some point,” an underwhelmed Ryan Ruocco noted on the YES broadcast.
“I didn’t know it’s in the first inning, like right away!” García later pleads. “I was waiting for the fifth, sixth inning; seventh. When I hear my name, I say, ‘Oh, my god! It’s in the first inning!’”
García made good on his vow to be better prepared for his second roll call. But he wouldn’t even need to wait that long to bust out his “bazooka.”
Powered by a spate of two-run homers from Alec Burleson, the Cardinals built a quick 6-0 lead, chasing Schlittler from that Aug. 3 game. Bit by bit, though, the Yankees clawed back. Three runs in the fifth cut the deficit in half. Back-to-back homers from Ryan McMahon and José Caballero to lead off the seventh brought them within one, 6-5. Four batters later, García stepped to the plate with two outs and Trent Grisham standing on second base.
He had been 0-for-4 in his career against Cardinals right-hander George Soriano, but having already gotten his first hit as a Yankee out of the way with a fourth-inning single, the lefty-swinging García was feeling good. On 2-2, he stayed alive by fouling off a 97 mph heater above the strike zone. Then on the next pitch, he brought the crowd of 38,151 to its feet by hammering a 90 mph changeup on the low inside corner off the back wall of the bullpen in right field.
Maintaining his composure amid the delirium in the Bronx, García trotted quickly around the bases. But as he turned toward home, he didn’t offer third-base coach Luis Rojas a fist bump or an arm bash. He threw the “bazooka” on his shoulder and burst into a wide grin -- the first of what he and the Yankees hope will be many explosive moments in pinstripes.
***
Although the Yankees would go on to lose García’s first game, his seventh-inning rocket shot provided solid evidence of what made him such a coveted trade target: an ability to absolutely punish right-handed pitching. At the time of the trade, García was leading the National League with a .560 slugging percentage, bolstered by a .593 mark against righties. Twenty of his 23 homers and 64 of his 76 RBIs also came against opposite-handed pitching.
“He’s a very dangerous hitter,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “Really good bat-to-ball [skills]. It’s fun watching him take an at-bat. You kind of feel like, If this pitcher makes a mistake here, it’s going to get hit with authority. That’s the feeling I get every time he walks up. So, it’s nice to have him.”
The team gave up a substantial package of four pitchers -- Jake Bird and Yovanny Cruz, along with Minor Leaguers Jack Cebert and Ben Grable -- for García, but the deal was widely praised by the baseball world, given the Yankees’ need for offense. (The Athletic’s Tyler Kepner and Dennis Lin graded the trade an A for the Yankees and gave Washington a C.) The team’s superb pitching had kept the Yanks comfortably in the postseason picture, but with Aaron Judge out since the end of May, and with Giancarlo Stanton and Cody Bellinger also on the injured list in early August, scoring runs was increasingly difficult.
Yankees general manager Brian Cashman had to thread a tight needle at this year’s Deadline. Acquiring a big bat is always a challenge, and the line of demarcation between buyers and sellers was especially fuzzy this year. He also had to acquire players good enough not just to help the team tread water while Judge, Stanton and Bellinger were out; considering the price that sellers were commanding, he was looking to bring in players that could fit in the lineup even at full strength.
And so, he managed to pry García away from Washington. The next day, as the 6 p.m. Trade Deadline approached, Cashman acquired outfielder Heliot Ramos from San Francisco in exchange for two prospects: Henry Lalane, a pitcher from the Bronx; and Kaeden Kent, an infielder whose father, Jeff, was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame this summer with a Giants cap on his bronze plaque. Both García -- who is under contract through 2027 -- and Ramos -- who isn’t expected to hit free agency until 2030 -- figure to be contributors even after the Yankees’ big boppers return to action.
“It’s always hard to find matches, but we stayed engaged fully, and one of the first areas of need was to try to upgrade the offense in any way, shape or form we can, while waiting for important players to come back off the IL,” Cashman said. “We’re happy that we were able to bring in Ramos and García to solve some of the problems, and we’re looking forward to getting the other guys back from the IL over time to fortify and finish this off for a supercharge.”
On a team that was already stocked with second-generation big leaguers such as Bellinger, Ryan Weathers and -- once he was called up from Triple-A on Aug. 4 -- George Lombard Jr., the new acquisitions fit right in. García’s father, Luis, spent 10 seasons in pro ball, seven of them in the Tigers organization, including an eight-game stint in the bigs in 1999. Ramos’ brother, Henry, who appeared in the Majors with Arizona in 2021 and Cincinnati in 2023, is now playing in the independent Mexican League in his 17th professional season, while their oldest brother, Héctor “Pito” Ramos, was a star soccer player in their native Puerto Rico.
“One of the guys told me, they picked me for a reason, right?” said Ramos. “It’s exciting, of course. The responsibilities, the standards of this organization, are super high. So, I’m just trying to keep that standard. I don’t want to be ‘that guy,’ if that makes sense. Honestly, I just want to keep that standard high, keep working hard. Them knowing me for the great player that I am, the hustle, the energy that I bring -- that’s who I am, and that’s what I want to bring to the table.”
Known for his power to right-center, Ramos is, thus far, the only right-handed batter to homer into McCovey Cove since the Giants’ ballpark opened in 2000. He made his big league debut in 2022 -- two years after García -- and was an All-Star in 2024, when he batted .269 with 22 homers (including the Splash Hit) and 72 RBIs. Like García, Ramos is seeking his first trip to the postseason, but he wasn’t thinking about October during his Aug. 4 introductory press conference. He was simply excited to be joining an organization -- and a baseball blood feud -- that is revered in his homeland.
“Where I grew up, Puerto Rico, that’s all we’ve known -- the rivalry: Boston versus Yankees,” Ramos said. “When I first found out about the news, I started shaking a little bit because obviously I didn’t know anything else. But then I realized, Man, I’m going to be a New York Yankee. That’s crazy!
“I’m very proud of being here. Who doesn’t like to be a Yankee?”
***
Four infielder’s gloves, each with its own bold, eye-catching custom design, sit in a neat row along the top shelf of García’s locker in the Yankees’ clubhouse. Far from decorative, they each serve an important purpose. They’re also well broken-in, a result of García’s enthusiasm for playing all over the diamond, both in games and during practice.
“Everything [the Yankees] need, I’m here,” he said. “I only try to help the team to win. Whatever position they need, I play everything -- but no catching. I don’t like catching. I play everything else.
“You see all those gloves? I’m ready to go.”
For all the talk surrounding García’s bat upon his arrival in New York, the only time his defense was mentioned was when interested observers tried to figure out where he was going to play. He had spent the first four months of this season solely at first base (93 games) or as Washington’s designated hitter (nine games), spots in the lineup that Ben Rice and Paul Goldschmidt had pretty well covered in New York. Would the Yankees shift the rest of the infield around to perhaps make room for him at second base, where he spent most of the previous three years?
Two weeks into García’s tenure, those questions ceased: He was entrenched at first base. While Rice served as the DH and Goldschmidt became available off the bench as a pinch-hitter, García hit third or fourth while playing excellent defense. A former Minor League defensive player of the year in the Nationals organization, García caught many Yankees fans’ attention on Aug. 7 with a stunning, back-to-the-infield grab while running at a full sprint to rob Atlanta’s Ronald Acuña Jr. of a base hit in the 10th inning of a tie game.
“I feel very good here,” García said of his new surroundings. “The first time coming here, I feel like I have about three years playing with this team. Everybody here is very nice, and the field is good. I love it.”
Part of that comfort stems from having spent so much time in New York already. García lived in Manhattan until he was 8, and even after moving to the Dominican Republic, he would return for two or three weeks at a time while school was out to visit family in Corona, Queens. Many of those relatives still live in the city and will be cheering him on at Yankee Stadium.
“It means so much to me,” García said. “I was born here, so, to be able to play for this team, as players, I think everybody wants an opportunity to wear this jersey, these pinstripes, and also to be able to play in front of my family, it means a lot.”
It will mean even more if he gets a chance to experience October baseball in the Bronx. García just missed out on being part of the Nationals’ 2019 World Series championship team, arriving in August the following year at age 20 -- the youngest player in the bigs during that pandemic-shortened season. He gained invaluable experience over the next several years, taking over as the team’s everyday second baseman in 2021, switching to shortstop and then back to second after the Nats acquired CJ Abrams in ’22, becoming the second-youngest player ever to record six hits in a nine-inning game in ’23, then enjoying a breakout 2024 season in which he led the Nationals in hits (141), batting average (.282), RBIs (70) and OPS (.762). But Washington spent most of that time mired in the NL East basement, finishing at least 20 games below .500 every year since 2021. Having García’s bat in the lineup -- along with his assortment of gloves on the field -- once everyone is healthy has Boone feeling optimistic about his team’s chances as summer turns to fall.
“He’s a big addition for us,” the manager said. “And especially as we get more and more whole as the season unfolds, he just adds to what we hope in the end is a very lengthy lineup.”
Nathan Maciborski is the executive editor of Yankees Magazine. This story appears in the September 2026 edition. Get more articles like this delivered to your doorstep by purchasing a subscription to Yankees Magazine at www.yankees.com/publications.