The Brewers are coasting to a division title, leading the NL Central by nine and a half games after taking the first two games of this week’s series with the Reds. That’s the largest divisional lead of any team in MLB. While the pitching staff deservedly gets plenty of credit as the biggest driver of Milwaukee’s success, the offense has been solid enough to hold up its end of the bargain. Avisaíl García has somewhat quietly been among the Brewers’ top performers, which looks as if it’ll set up an interesting offseason decision for teams.
García signed with Milwaukee on a two-year, $20MM guarantee over the 2019-20 offseason. The pact contained a $12MM club option ($2MM buyout) covering the 2022 campaign. That provision vests into a mutual option, however, were García to tally 1050 plate appearances over his first two seasons in Milwaukee.
Thresholds for vesting options were prorated during last year’s shortened season, with each plate appearance in 2020 counting as 2.7 plate appearances for option purposes. García’s 207 trips to the plate last year comes out to 558 plate appearances over a full season, meaning he needs to reach 492 plate appearances this season to trigger the vesting option. García’s already at 433 plate appearances, so he’ll need just 59 more over Milwaukee’s final 35 games of 2021 to reach that mark. Barring injury, he should have no problem getting there.
That would give García a lot more control over his future this winter. The 30-year-old could decline his end of the mutual option, collect the $2MM buyout, and look to top the $10MM in remaining guaranteed money on the open market. Given how well he’s played this season, he shouldn’t have trouble doing that, although precisely what kind of contract he could land is an interesting question.
García is hitting .275/.346/.506 with 24 home runs this year, translating to a 125 wRC+ that suggests he’s been 25 percentage points better than the league average hitter. That’s the second-best mark of his career, topped only by his .330/.380/.506 showing (138 wRC+) with the 2017 White Sox. That season in Chicago never looked replicable, as García benefitted from a .392 batting average on balls in play that easily led all qualified hitters. This year, García’s sporting a .304 BABIP that’s not much higher than the league average and is well below his career mark.
This time around, García’s getting to his production with career-best power. He’s already exceeded his previous personal best in home runs (20 in 2019), and his .231 isolated power (slugging minus batting average) is also a career high. García’s 21.9% strikeout rate is his second-lowest ever, nearly five percentage points below the 26.5% mark he posted in 2017. So while García has posted this level of bottom-line production before, he’s never gotten there in quite this way.
That said, there are still reasons for teams to be reluctant to buy in completely. While his strikeouts are down a bit relative to recent seasons, his actual level of swing-and-miss is not. García’s 17.1% swinging strike rate this season is a near-match for his 17.2% career mark, and it’s the fifth-highest figure in the league among the 198 players with 300+ plate appearances. That reflects one of the sport’s most aggressive approaches. García has swung at 57% of pitches he’s seen, the fourth-highest rate among that group; his 40.2% swing rate on pitches outside the strike zone is eleventh.
Rather than toning down his aggressiveness, García has gotten to his high-end production this year by making consistently strong contact. The career-best home run and slugging output is supported by the batted ball metrics. His hard contact rate (49%) and average exit velocity (90.7 MPH) are career-best marks. Statcast’s estimators — which predict the results of balls in play based on their exit velocity and launch angle — suggest García has “deserved” a .285 batting average and a .520 slugging percentage, slightly better than his actual marks in those respective categories.
That García has seemingly earned all of his success this year — as opposed to benefitting from an inordinate amount of luck on balls in play — doesn’t automatically mean he’ll be able to keep this up, though. He’s always been something of a Statcast darling, with the huge raw power that once made him a top prospect manifesting itself in high-end batted ball metrics. Despite that, his results have varied wildly throughout his career, largely because he has walked such a fine line with his approach.
García became a regular in 2015. In the seven years since, he’s had three above-average offensive seasons and four subpar campaigns. His career hasn’t followed any sort of linear trajectory; his good years in 2017, 2019 and 2021 were interrupted by disappointing intervening seasons. Even within this season, he has sandwiched a poor April and June around monstrous months of May, July and August.
He’s been similarly tough to pin down defensively. García’s certainly fast and athletic enough to make some highlight plays in the outfield (he took away a home run from Max Schrock just last night, in fact). But the advanced metrics have all pegged him right around league average in the corners over the course of his career. He has rated rather poorly in his limited looks in center.
Taken in aggregate, García looks to be one of the more fascinating players who could hit the open market in a few months. Between his youth, high-end platform season and obvious physical gifts, his representatives at Mato Sports Management could plausibly push for a four-year deal if García finishes the year at this level. But there’ll certainly be some teams scared off by his approach and career-long streakiness.
The first team that’ll be faced with a decision on García is his current club. Assuming García reaches the vesting option threshold and declines his end to hit free agency, the Brewers will have to decide whether to make him a qualifying offer. That would land somewhere in the $19MM range for 2022 if García accepts, nearly doubling the AAV of his current deal. Were he to decline and sign elsewhere, Milwaukee would pick up a compensatory draft choice to aid a farm system that Baseball America just ranked as one of the league’s ten worst. How the Brewers and other teams feel about García looks likely to get answered this winter, as he’s around fifteen games away from earning the right to explore the market.
Image credit: USA Today Sports.
Brewers should gamble and QO him and gamble that his agent is greedy and turns down the QO. The corner OF market hasn’t been kind lately especially to guys with QOs.
Intelligent gms will use my perfect rule of thumb, if a guy is over 30 no multi year contracts and not get struck by a landmine.
I agree. Don’t think he can be consistent enough to maintain this pace. 1/2 good seasons in 10 years. Wouldn’t offer more than a 1 + 1
Gambling with the looming strike is not prudent. First, if the trend continues, he is due for a down year. Second, with the unknown of what the next Agreement might bring, many agents are likely to tell their clients to take the sure thing, before the ceiling gets lowered or a cap is applied. While unlikely, only the $19MM is a sure thing. Avi at $19MM during one of his down years is not something I would recommend.
Good luck to all those GM’s trying to build a playoff team with no 30(+) year olds on multi year contracts.
The rays do it nearly every year in by far the hardest division in baseball. In fact most of the time the reason why playoff teams don’t make the playoffs the following year is because they have multiple 30 year plus guys on 5-6 year deals who they have to play crippling their salary flexibility. It’s hilarious just how out of touch fans are.
A hard Call for the brewers. The QO is a lot of money. They have a couple of replacements in the wings, Taylor and Mitchell. I prefer doing a 2 year extension for 28 to 30 million!
Mitchell is stumbling at Biloxi against tougher pitching. I wouldn’t count on him until he passes the Corey Ray phase. Brewers have another few years of MLB patch work roster until they have something dependable on the farm.
What do you mean by “patch work roster”.
Division winning, playoff making- despite-all-the-experts-predictions, win just to spite everyone who swears they can’t-patchwork roster…
With a pretty good pitching staff led by a guy who was lights out last year that people said couldn’t replicate.
Burnes and Woody are so nasty
he’s money in odd numbered years
Possibly an interesting option for the Rangers to play LF on a two-year deal around 24-28 million total value. I could see him as an appealing flip at deadline piece if his production stays close to or better than current levels.
It’s crazy that Garcia is making less than Jackie Bradley, Jr. No question JBJ exercises his $12M+ option for next season; he’s had a horrible year at the plate.
A QO makes sense for Garcia even if he accepts it. Anything close to the same production next season is worth $19M. The only question is, will the QO still exist in the same format with the new CBA? I can see the players union pushing back and reducing it to the average salary of the top 75-100 players vs. the 125 that it is today, if they even agree to keep it. In most cases, the QO ends up hurting the player’s chances of finding a long term deal unless they are a star player.
The league and the players should never have done away with the Type A FA concept. It was 100x more flexible than today’s QO concept, where you are either in or out.
You can set the $ parameters at whatever suits the payroll structure. For the top-10% of the players, no one is going to hand out a $100M contract and worry about it costing them a #1.
Someone would get very offended when ranking the top 10%
Avisail Garcia would like pretty good back in RF for the White Sox considering the production they have received since he left following his injury plagued 2018 season. The combination of Ryan Cordell, Charlie Tilson, Nomar Mazara and Adam Eaton have produced far below average numbers.
Adam Engel and Brian Goodwin have been OK but profile better as platoon options and reserve OF’s on a serious contender. The White Sox got some decent production from Gavin Sheets in his limited MLB debut last month but he is a first baseman by trade and doesn’t profile all that well defensively in RF with his speed, arm or athleticism.
Recent Cuban international signee Yoelqui Cespedes could be the answer later next season or in 2023. Yet another high profile Cuban, Oscar Colas is expected to sign with the White Sox in January but likely won’t be ready for prime time until at least a year later than Cespedes.
It will be interesting to see how the White Sox approach their black hole in RF this offseason but a return of Garcia could be a possibility on a higher AAV short term contract. How they envision or employ the trio of Jose Abreu, Andrew Vaughn and Eloy Jimenez between 1B, LF and DH in 2022 will also factor in. Abreu will be in the final year of his contract, Vaughn like Sheets profiles better at 1B while Jimenez is a defensive liability and injury prone on the grass.
3B Jake Burger might also figure in the mix but he and Sheets are more likely to be trade bait this offseason unless the front office decides that the Yoan Moncada of 2020 and 2021 figures to be the norm rather than the 2019 version. It’s a bit ironic that Moncada has seemingly turned into the earlier version of Garcia with his inconsistent play and health concerns during his 4-1/2 year White Sox career.
Brewers FO really seems to know what they’re doing. Aside from the Jackie Bradley signing it’s been really great to see, they have had to retool a few times in a short window recently as well but haven’t lost steam.
The Brewers are the anti-Padres. Wong was an excellent signing. Adames a great trade, and the much-maligned Lauer/Urias trade is looking really good.
They’ve been great at waiting out free agency. Most teams would be wise not to have any contact with any free agents until February and pick up whoever is left on a 1 year deal.
Avi should opt out and the Brewers probably won’t QO him. But they might re-sign him. Stearns doesn’t generally go with guys on the high-end of their earning potential; he looks for players that are primed for bounce-backs. Plus, they have Yeli’s deal which ain’t looking all that good. Garcia has been a great contributor this season, and I’d love to see him back. But I don’t expect it.
Well I think the biggest thing as far as Garcia goes is he lost all that weight and came in to camp in shape. Question is did he do that just cause it’s a contract year. Yes Brewers should give him the QO. I do believe that . Taylor has earned a starting job with the team for next year. FO likes him a lot. So that gives you Yellich and Taylor in two spots. Now questions are, will Cain come back or retire and honestly I could see JBJ still enter back into free agency just to get outof Milwaukee. Then another thing in the decision making is will there be a DH in national league? Plus does Milwaukee try to use some of these funds to lock up some of the pitching?
I’d be really surprised if JBJ didn’t excersise his option.
I was a big fan of the signing before 2020. I thought he was a great value at 2/$20M. 2020 was a disappointment but this year has been great for Garcia and the Brewers.
He should test free agency but I don’t think he’s going to break the bank. Best thing for Garcia is to work something out with the Brewers where everyone is happy. He’d be a great fit in Texas or Florida too.
He screwed Prince Fielder’s wife and got kicked out of Detroit. Wasn’t a clubhouse guy in Tampa. I hope he has changed his ways.
If you’ve watched enough games, particularly since the Adames trade, it would seem he has..or managed to keep the personal stuff personal.
Either way, it looks like everyone gets along well..or, again, manage to keep the personal stuff personal.
Garcia has the Saberhagen syndrome. He’s good every other year
One thing many people are forgetting to mention, is that he’s legit been in the best shape of his career this season. He opted to drop some weight, change his routine, and it’s produced some great results. If he keeps in this shape and keeps this routine up, he could change that “every other year is a down year” streak around real fast and have several productive years like this one before he falls to being a below average player.
I don’t know what the Brewers will do. The signing of JBJ, Mike Moustakas and Lorenzo Cain in years past surprised me. I don’t predict MIL anymore.
The Brewers will only resign Garcia if no team offers a big, lengthy contract. He’s good but definitely not great. I don’t think any team will pay “great” money. He might stay because of comfort. Little pressure in Milwaukee and he’s “bro’s” with Adames. If you’re Seattle, as an example, do you go with S. Marte or Garcia. I think they go Marte
Tyrone Taylor will be the starter in RF next year.