The White Sox announced today that outfielder Avisail Garcia is headed back to the 10-day disabled list with a strained right hamstring. That’s the same essential injury that forced him out of action for much of the first half of the season.
To take the open spot on the active roster, the Chicago organization has promoted Ryan LaMarre. The outfielder was acquired recently in a waiver claim from the division-rival Twins, who had designated him for assignment.
The news is rather disappointing for Garcia, who had been on fire at the plate since being activated. In 17 games since his return to the roster in late June, he carried a .333/.347/.783 slash with eight home runs. Though that stretch also included just two walks to go with 17 strikeouts, Garcia showed last year that he can be quite productive even when carrying a marginal walk rate.
It now seems reasonable to presume that Garcia won’t really factor in this summer’s trade deadline build-up. Questions about the sustainability of his hitting, poorly graded glovework, and nagging hamstring problems already posed questions. Now, though the team hasn’t ruled out a return before the end of the month, it’s especially hard to imagine a trade coming together.
Garcia is earning $6.7MM this year and remains eligible for one more season of arbitration, which obviously reduces any urgency to work out a trade this summer. Certainly, the rebuilding South Siders could try to deal him next winter or instead decide to pursue an extension. Garcia, after all, is just 27 years old. Of course, his age, earnings to date, and proximity to free agency also leave him with a fair bit of leverage. There has been no clear indication to date whether a long-term deal is a serious consideration for the club.
guy sucks. do not extend him
If Garcia’s hamstrings could hold up he’d be a better player. His injuries keep taking away time he could work on his glove work and his bat.
139 and 129 OPS+ the past 2 seasons. That certainly doesn’t suck.
Damn, he was looking decent since coming off the DL. I was hoping that maybe they could swing a good trade for him.
he had one good year last year with a 4.6 WAR. his 129 OPS+ this year is in 35 games.
He doesn’t walk a lot. But so what.
Maybe he will take a 4 year 18 million dollar extension and he will end up being the DH and Outfielder option by the time we are good. and if he is healthy it would be a very team friendly contract and if he is hurt all the time he is happy that he is getting paid and then the Sox can release him and say well we took a chance
No way he takes 4.5M a year
Avisail Garcia is already getting paid $6.7MM for this season and will get another raise this offseason for his final arbitration eligible year in 2019 before becoming a potential free agent. If the White Sox thought that Garcia would settle for the contract extension you proposed they would have gladly offered it to him last offseason after his breakout 2017 campaign. Even with Garcia spending most of this season on the disabled list the front office would be thrilled to give him that type of extension going forward.
A deal of that nature for a 27-year old corner outfielder with his offensive metrics the past two seasons would be more than comparable to the extension given to Adam Eaton before he was traded to the Nationals in 2016. Eaton might have had more defensive value but that was as a RF in Chicago than as a CF. Garcia’s offensive numbers are more in line with those typical of a corner OF, especially with his recent surge in power.
Bottom line: If the White Sox are interested in extending Garcia beyond his 2019 walk year it will likely take a contract extension of at least his current AAV and for more than 4 years. A 5-year deal this offseason for $35MM would be a basic starting point just to get Garcia and his agent interested.
Probably in both club and Avi’s interest to just ride out the current contract since his trade value is modest (even when not hurt). Like the way he has become a legit hitter, but better to risk seeing if he can even stay on field first half of 2019.
Market value for Avi would probably be around $11-12M AAV. Avi could certainly be a nice piece on a contending team at that price, even if you expect him to come back to earth and only be ~2 WAR player in the future. Sox should wait and see how the prospects develop over the next year before committing to anything though. Some may laugh at this but don’t sleep on Rutherford forcing his way into the corner outfield conversation in the next 18 months. He’s having a great season.
I agree with your assessment. Along with pitching, the White Sox elite prospect depth is in their outfield talent. Three of them are in mlb.com’s top-100 list with LF Eloy Jimenez (#2), CF Luis Robert (#24) and RF Blake Rutherford (#81). They have four more outfielders ranked among their organizational top-17 giving them a total of seven all told which matches the number of their best pitching prospects.
No he’s not on the DL. He’s playing against the Cardinals right now.
My bad. Wrong Garcia.
I heard he had a sore eye brow. The guy is a fragile puss