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Loosely speaking, I put him in an Aaron Sele Yakker-Only template, as far as his attack style.   Although his pitches look quite a bit different in flight.  He pitches off the threat of a ball rolling off the table on you. 

Three distinctive things about him:

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=== 132 Wins ===

Garland's game is highly repeatable.  He's not a Danny Hultzen 2013 who would lock you down one night, and get blasted the next night.  He will execute his pitches the same way on a game-in, game-out basis.  Sometimes the grounders will go through holes; sometimes a fly ball will go over the fence.

As KGaffney has pointed out, the M's have a disporportionate fondness for pitchers whose game-to-game performances have a small standard deviation (see:  Kevin Millwood).  But disproportionate fondness aside, if you can get a #5 starter who racks up 20 quality starts, that's a serious weapon if put in front of a team that scores runs.  You wind up going .500 with your 5th starter on the mound.

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=== Overhand Delivery = Deception (in his case) ===

If you didn't see the game, this video will remind you.  Garland's release comes from an EXAGGERATED 12 o' clock angle, which is kind of fun to watch.

Here is a Brooks release point chart.  The grouping is amusingly small, and very high off the ground.

You remember Erikkk throwing sharp 12-6 yakkers and coming back with high fastballs?  It created a situation in which his various pitches shared the same EARLY flight path.  

A hitter has to decipher the pitch in the first 50% of its flight, because he has to spend the other 0.20 seconds swinging.  If a fastball and curve come in looking the same, and then diverge only during the last half of the flight, the hitter has a real issue.

Garland comes way over the top with a located sinking fastball, and also comes over the top with a "slider" that has a horizontal (non-)break of 0, maybe -1 inches.  Then his change curve is also totally vertical.  You can see how his three pitches are confusing to read against one another.

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Baker has emphasized his need to keep the ball down.  The reason for that is really deception.  As the fastball angles DOWNWARD in flight, it becomes tough to differentiate from his start-high-finish-low slider.

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=== BABIP ===

When we first took a look at Garland's deception, we thought, man, I wonder what this guy's BABIP is.  He must be tough to square up!

Sure enough, his career BABIP is .284, well below average, this despite his being a groundball pitcher.  His HR/9 is also better than average -- 1.1 career is right at average, but it's only that high because he got tatered when a very young pitcher, 2003 and 2004.  Since 2005, his HR/F have been a strength.

So his ERA runs lower than expected.  His career ERA is almost 10% lower than his FIP, and is much lower than his xFIP, this over the course of 2,000 innings.

Here's a guy you can't "capture" by looking at K, BB, HR, and velocity.  The whole of his game is indeed greater than the sum of his parts.

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=== Comparables ===

Garland's last two healthy years, 2009 and 2010, he went a combined 25-25, 3.75, with 200 innings per.  You're talking about an average-solid MLB starter, and there are a whale of a lot of teams who don't have that in the 5 slot.  Like, probably, 33 of the 37 (?) historical Mariner teams.  

Speaking as a guy who has had his gutful of Brian Fishers and Russ Swans at the end of Mariner rotations -- as I'm sure Chuck Armstrong also has had -- I can see the appeal of a dependable #5SP.

Comparable pitchers:  John Burkett, Bronson Arroyo, Jake Westbrook.