Can Avisail Garcia Continue To Out-Mash The Competition?
Avisail Garcia is destroying much of what he’s being thrown by Major League pitchers. After striding to the plate 208 times, he has an even .300 batting average, 11 dingers, and a healthy 138 wRC+. That’s awfully good value for the Rays, who paid him all of $3.5MM for one season of work.
There’s a reason they got Garcia for that amount: his substandard, injury-filled 2018 season, at the end of which he was non-tendered by the White Sox. It really didn’t come as a surprise when the South Siders cut bait and the Tampa Bay org picked up Garcia for less than half his projected arbitration salary.
The past is the past, so far as the Rays are concerned. What matters right now is that Garcia is seeing red and putting his contract in the black. But what happens when he returns to the open market this coming winter? We’ve still got a lot of plate appearances to watch, but what if he keeps up something like his current pace?
It isn’t as if he hasn’t done it before. Back in 2017, Garcia carried a .330/.380/.506 slash over 561 plate appearances — good for a 137 wRC+ that’s a near match for his current output. Then again, he leaned on a whopping .392 batting average on balls in play to reach that number, which plummeted back to .271 in the ensuing season while he tried to play through a hamstring injury. And he had posted underwhelming numbers previously. Garcia doesn’t stand out at all in terms of plate discipline, with roughly average strikeout numbers (despite huge swinging-strike rates) and slightly below-average walk rates for his career.
When he’s hot, he’s hot … not/not. Is that all there is to it? Should teams be wary of putting too much stock in his current upswing? Perhaps. The K/BB numbers are in line with his personal mean. There were some lean years in the past. Then again, it’s not as if there aren’t any changes worthy of attention in Garcia’s profile.
Statcast has picked up on quite a few interesting observations. Garcia is putting the barrel on the ball more than about nine in ten of his peers. He carries a healthy and career-best 46.5% hard-hit rate. His average exit velo is up to 91.4 mph after sitting just over 90 for the prior three seasons. Put it together, and Statcast actually thinks Garcia has been unlucky, crediting him with a .392 xwOBA that exceeds his .379 wOBA.
Garcia is doing things a bit differently than in the past. He’s putting the ball in the air more often than ever, with a launch angle that sits at 11.1 degrees after a third-straight year-over-year gain. His 1.24 GB/FB rate is by far the lowest of his career. (The leaguewide reduction in sinkers is likely playing a role, as Garcia is suddenly seeing half as many as he had before.) The flies are flying quite nicely, too. Just 2.0% are harmlessly dropping into infielders’ gloves, while 20+% are going over the outfield wall (about the same rate as they did for him last year).
There’s no question: Garcia is an increasingly interesting upcoming free agent asset. Garcia is enjoying a lofty .346 BABIP, but that’s not an outlandish number — particularly for a player who owns a .331 career mark. He’s even trending up defensively (+3 DRS, +3.4 UZR) and on the bases (six steals). With 1.6 fWAR in the bank, he’s on pace for a ~5 WAR campaign.
And we saved one of the best parts for last: Garcia hasn’t even turned 28 years of age. Okay, he’s just a week away from his birthday. Still, teams pondering a purchase this coming winter will get to plug a 28-year-old slugger onto their 2020 Opening Day roster.
What’s most interesting about Garcia’s free agent case is the presence of three other remarkably similar players: Marcell Ozuna of the Cardinals, Yasiel Puig of the Reds, and Nicholas Castellanos of the Tigers. Their numbers obviously vary a bit, but over the past three seasons they have landed within a fairly narrow band.
All four are right-handed hitters with roughly league-average plate discipline (Ozuna and Puig are the best of the trio in K/BB) and good but not exceptional power (Garcia sits just under .200 ISO, the other three just over). Most carry high batting averages (excepting Puig, though he has done so in the past) and well-regarded corner outfield glovework (Castellanos is the exception, though he has graded as a palatable performer this year). They’re also all rather youthful free agents; Castellanos is the youngest, having just turned 27 in March, with Ozuna and Puig already past their 28th birthdays. All have had their ups and downs.
There’s more to consider than the past three seasons — Ozuna, in particular, has a much better and more consistent overall track record — but Garcia lines up rather well on a rate basis in that span. And he has handily outperformed the other three in the present season, with only Ozuna (121 wRC+) turning in above-average offensive output to this point.
In the latest iteration of MLBTR’s 2019-20 free agent power rankings, Ozuna placed third and Puig landed the tenth spot, while Castellanos drew an honorable mention. It’s plenty understandable that my wise and able boss, Tim Dierkes, mentioned those three while excluding Garcia. At that point, Garcia carried a decent but uninspiring stat line. But as the sample has grown, so has Garcia’s case to be considered among this group. Indeed, given Puig’s struggles at the plate this seasons and a tepid early showing from Castellanos — with league-average offense and marginal defense, he’s a full win behind Garcia — it’s possible Garcia will be the top challenger to Ozuna in this market class.
We’ll see how things shake out over the coming months, but Garcia’s reemergence helps to create an interesting dynamic. The broader free agent class is rather uninspiring, owing to a round of major extensions, but it’s interesting to see this foursome of youthful, rather analogous players entering free agency at the same time. Each will drive his own earning power on the field over the final two-thirds of the season, though the markets will surely intertwine. Garcia has a long way to go to securing a quality multi-year deal — in addition to producing, he’ll need to avoid further hamstring problems — but he has already done enough to this point to make that a realistic possibility.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Rays Designate Oliver Drake, Announce Signing Of Avisail Garcia
The Rays have designated righty Oliver Drake for assignment, Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times reports on Twitter. His roster spot will go to outfielder Avisail Garcia, whose previously reported signing is now official.
It’s not terribly surprising to see Drake again dropped from a 40-man roster, as it seems his fate to end up in DFA limbo at least once every few months. In addition to his many prior trips into that netherworld, Drake has thrice moved through limbo this offseason alone. This isn’t even the first time he has been cast away by the Tampa Bay org since the 2018 season drew to a close.
Whether the 32-year-old will clear waivers or again end up on the move remains to be seen, but the smart money may be on a deal. Quite a few teams obviously still see the potential in his right arm, given that he appeared with an eye-popping five MLB teams last year and has since continued to bounce around the waiver wire. As we have explained on quite a few prior occasions, Drake has long produced intriguing peripherals. While that hasn’t often led to equivalent results, he did finish on a strong run last year with the Twins.
Rays To Sign Avisail Garcia
The Rays have reached agreement on a contract with free-agent outfielder Avisail Garcia. He’ll earn at least $3.5MM on the one-year deal, with the potential for more.
The 27-year-old, who was non-tendered by the White Sox just before the deadline earlier in the offseason, can achieve an additional $2.5M via incentive pay tied to his playing time. He’ll get $250K upon reaching 350 plate appearances and do the same for every fifty more thereafter, through his 600th PA. There’s another $1MM payout if he strides to the plate 650 times.
Tampa Bay has reportedly been in the market for a right-handed bat and, if finalized, will bring a buy-low candidate who fits that description into the fold with Garcia. Hamstring issues torpedoed Garcia’s 2018 season, as he was limited to just 93 games and managed just a .236/.281/.438 batting line in 385 plate appearances. A year prior, though, Garcia enjoyed a breakout campaign with a .330/.380/.506 slash through 561 plate appearances.
Truthfully, though, it’s difficult to know what to make of Garcia. His 2017 season was very clearly inflated to an extent by a .392 average on balls in play that he isn’t ever likely to repeat (or even approach). Garcia struck out at a career-low 19.8 percent clip that season, but he also hit the ball on the ground at a 52.2 percent clip — hardly a trend that is conducive to success for a plodding player who is listed at 6’4″ and 240 pounds.
Garcia seemed a prime regression candidate in 2018, and while that held true when looking at his bottom-line stats, there were actually a fair number of silver linings in an otherwise disastrous season. Garcia hit the ball in the air at a career-high 34.4 percent rate, resulting in a clear power surge. Despite having just 385 PAs last season, he clubbed a career-high 19 home runs, and his .202 ISO (slugging percentage minus batting average) was easily a career-high mark as well. Moreover, Garcia’s hard-hit rate jumped from 40.7 percent in 2017 to 43.2 percent in 2018, per Statcast. At the same time, though, Garcia also punched out in a career-worst 26.5 percent of his plate appearances.
Those past two seasons, in many ways, are a microcosm of Garcia’s career. He’s long been touted as a potential impact bat and clearly has some raw offensive capabilities, but he’s never been able to consistently tap into that talent. In fact, outside of that All-Star 2017 season, Garcia has essentially been a replacement-level player because of the fact that he’s graded out as a poor defender over parts of seven big league seasons.
The Rays have a strong defensive mix in the outfield with Tommy Pham, Kevin Kiermaier and Austin Meadows lined up for regular work, so it’s perhaps likelier that Garcia will see more time at designated hitter and play in the outfield corners only sparingly. Tampa Bay, then, is betting firmly on the offensive potential that has teased both the Tigers and White Sox so often in the past but rarely manifested itself over a consistent stretch in the Majors. If the Rays can cut back on Garcia’s strikeouts while helping him to maintain his hard-contact and fly-ball gains, however, he could prove to be a bargain source of pop in 2019 before returning to the open market next winter.
Tampa Bay already has Yandy Diaz lined up for some regular work at designated hitter, though he could also see time at first base with Ji-Man Choi as well. And given that neither Choi nor Diaz is a proven asset, it’s possible that either could struggle and thus further open at-bats for Garcia, who already figures to be in line for fairly regular playing time.
Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic first reported that a deal was close (via Twitter). Jon Heyman of Fancred (links to Twitter) reported that it was done and had financial details. The Athletic’s Jim Bowden first tweeted the total guarantee.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
AL Central Notes: Salazar, Goody, Avisail, Castro
As White Sox right-hander Reynaldo Lopez celebrates his 25th birthday today, let’s have a look at some items around the AL Central…
- Indians manager Terry Francona told reporters (including Cleveland.com’s Joe Noga) that Danny Salazar is “not going to be on pace where…we know when he comes to Spring Training, he’s not going to be competing to make our club.” Salazar missed all of 2018 dealing with shoulder problems, and underwent arthroscopic surgery to address the issue in early July. Francona didn’t entirely rule out the possibility of Salazar returning to the Tribe’s roster relatively early in the season, though the team certainly won’t rush the right-hander: “To force it with somebody doesn’t make a lot of sense.” Salazar and the Tribe agreed to an arbitration-avoiding $4.5MM salary for the 2019 season amidst some speculation that Cleveland could non-tender Salazar, though obviously the team still feels he is worth the risk as he continues to progress in his rehab. Francona had better news about Nick Goody, saying the right-hander is “on target to be with everybody else” in camp following a 2018 season that saw Goody pitch only 11 2/3 innings while battling elbow problems.
- Avisail Garcia “remains in the picture” for a potential return to the White Sox, MLB.com’s Scott Merkin writes, though not if the team makes a much bigger splash by signing Bryce Harper. Chicago non-tendered Garcia rather than pay him a projected $8.0MM arbitration salary in 2019. Garcia posted replacement-level production in three of his four full seasons with the Sox, seemingly breaking out with a 4.2 fWAR season in 2017 but then reverting to a 0.0 fWAR in 2018 while hitting .236/.281/.438 with 19 homers in 385 PA. Knee injuries could have contributed to this subpar performance, so there is hope that Garcia is a rebound candidate with better health.
- Twins catcher Jason Castro is on track for the start of Spring Training, The Athletic’s Dan Hayes (subscription required) writes in an update on the veteran backstop. 2018 was a lost season for Castro, who appeared in just 19 games before undergoing what ended up as a season-ending knee surgery in May, as Castro’s meniscus had to be fully repaired. The rehab process has proceeded as planned, according to Twins chief baseball officer Derek Falvey, and Castro should be in line for a normal spring. Castro is entering the final season of a three-year, $24.5MM contract with Minnesota.
White Sox Non-Tender Avisail Garcia
The White Sox have decided not to tender a contract to outfielder Avisail Garcia, GM Rick Hahn told reporters including MLB.com’s Scott Merkin (via Twitter). He was projected by MLBTR & Matt Swartz to earn $8.0MM in arbitration.
Meanwhile, the Chicago club has reached agreement to avoid arbitration with Leury Garcia, Hahn added. He’ll earn $1.55MM, per Mark Gonzales of the Chicago Tribune (via Twitter), which lands well shy of the $1.9MM that was projected.
More to come …
White Sox Reportedly Shopping Avisail Garcia
The White Sox are dangling outfielder Avisail Garcia in trade talks, according to MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand (via Twitter). If a taker isn’t found, says Feinsand, the club may end up simply non-tendering the 27-year-old.
A key factor here is Garcia’s contract status. He’s projected by MLBTR and contributor Matt Swartz to earn a hefty $8.0MM in his final season of arbitration eligibility. With no future contractual upside — apart from a low-likelihood extension or qualifying offer — it’s mostly a rental scenario.
Certainly, the 2017 version of Garcia would be well worth that outlay. He broke out that season to the tune of a .330/.380/.506 slash and 18 home runs in 561 plate appearances. Otherwise, though, Garcia has never turned in a full season of even league-average offensive production.
Garcia was bothered by knee issues throughout the 2018 campaign and ultimately underwent surgery. That may offer some hope that his output was an aberration. He ended the year with only a .236/.281/.438 slash. Though his power increased (.202 ISO from .176 in 2017), his strikeout rate bumped up (to 26.5% from 19.8%) and his on-base percentage plummeted with his BABIP (which fell to .271 from a whopping .392).
Teams will need to decide whether to stake a bet on Garcia. Of course, the White Sox seem about as well-situated as any club to do so. While the team hopes to move forward in the standings, a short-term risk of this kind isn’t a bad strategy to pursue given the uncertainty of the South Siders’ still-emerging core.
That said, there are clear indications that the White Sox have eyes for bigger prizes — including, of course, a certain young star who’d supplant Garcia in right field. Whether or not landing Bryce Harper is a realistic outcome isn’t yet known, but moving Garcia off the roster and the books would certainly be a piece of that puzzle. It also may simply clear the deck to allow the team to pick up a different veteran or acquire a more youthful player who becomes a roster casualty from another organization. Top prospect Eloy Jimenez is obviously also a factor in the corner outfield mix, though he has spent most of his time in the minors in left field and seems quite unlikely to open the season on the MLB roster.
Trade Deadline Retrospective: Harper, Astros, Garcia, Nats, Puig
Baseball fans everywhere were stripped of high-level trade deadline intrigue last season, as Ken Rosenthal details in a stunning report for The Athletic, when a trade that would have sent Bryce Harper to the Astros in exchange for a trio of prospects was nixed by Washington’s ownership group. The trade, said to have been agreed upon a day before the July 31 deadline, would have sent 2017 first-rounder J.B. Bukauskas to the Nats, as well as two other prospects, one of which was reportedly catcher Garrett Stubbs. Though Bukauskas faces questions about a third pitch, which could relegate him to eventual relief duty, and Stubbs has cooled after a blistering 2016 performance for Double-A Corpus Christi, the package was surely superior in value to the compensatory pick the Nationals will receive should Harper depart in free agency, which, as Rosenthal notes, will come after the fourth round in next year’s draft, by virtue of the club exceeding the luxury tax total in 2018. Houston, which received middling corner-outfield production from Josh Reddick and Marwin Gonzalez last season, would certainly have benefitted from Harper’s presence in a lineup diminished by injuries to Carlos Correa and a substandard season from George Springer, though the departing asset cost would’ve assuredly been hefty for only two months of the 25-year-old superstar.
- Though no official reason was offered for the disapproval, Rosenthal speculates the Nationals owners may have been worried about damaging their relationship with Harper in the offseason to come. The club, after all, did offer Harper a reported $300MM over ten years on the last day of the 2018 season, and figures to further its aggression in efforts to sign the generational talent. During the August waiver period, the club also shot down a Dodger effort to acquire Harper, according to a report from the Los Angeles Times. It appears this offer, which reportedly included outfielder Yasiel Puig at its center, was nixed at the front office level, though it’s certainly plausible that previous ownership mandates were a significant factor in the team’s eventual refusal to depart with the star. Puig, certainly, would have been an intriguing return for just over a month’s use of Harper – the 27-year-old has had his share of on-field dustups, to be sure, but has remained a force at the plate: in an odd reverse split, the polarizing Cuban has put up a 142 wRC+ against right-handed pitching the last two seasons, good for 12th among qualifiers in baseball during that span, and is under team control through the 2019 season.
- After being stonewalled in their Harper pursuit, sources told Rosenthal that the Astros pivoted their attention (to, obviously, no avail) in the final hours to White Sox outfielder Avisail Garcia, dangling right-handed pitching prospect Francis Martes, whose damaged right elbow was apparently of no concern to the Southsiders. Garcia, who’s been around replacement-level in five of his six major league seasons thus far, seemed an odd target for an Astro club not much in need of a right-handed boost – the 27-year-old, after all, posted a minuscule 1.4% BB rate in the season’s first half, and again sunk to a level of below-league-average production by the time his season ended in knee surgery in mid-September.
Avisail Garcia To Undergo Knee Surgery
White Sox outfielder Avisail Garcia is set to undergo right knee surgery, he told reporters including MLB.com’s Scott Merkin (Twitter link). The precise nature of the procedure isn’t clear, but it seems there’s little reason to think it’ll pose any problems going forward.
Indeed, Garcia will wait until just after the conclusion of the regular season to have the work done. That’s as good an indication as any that there’s no real concern of jeopardizing his ability to prepare for the 2019 season.
Garcia says he has been battling issues in the joint all year long. He ended up on the shelf for stretches of the season and to this point has appeared in only 88 games.
Of greater concern for the South Siders is the fact that Garcia fell shy of his excellent 2017 output at the plate. Thus far in 2018, he’s slashing only .238/.278/.440. Though he has matched his career-high of 18 home runs in just 367 plate appearances, Garcia has also seen his strikeout rate jump to a career-high 26.4%.
On the positive side, Garcia actually made hard contact at a better rate (38.2%) than in 2017 or ever before. His year-over-year BABIP drop of 119 points (.392 to .273) certainly speaks to some variations in batted-ball fortune. Indeed, Statcast figures suggest that Garcia’s 2017 luck (.375 wOBA vs. .359 xwOBA) has simply turned in 2018 (.303 wOBA vs. .332 xwOBA).
Ultimately, the 27-year-old is all but certain to be tendered a contract by the White Sox. He’ll be in line for a raise on his current $6.7MM salary before qualifying for free agency, unless the club decides to pursue a longer-term contract.
AL Injury Notes: Didi, Trumbo, A. Garcia, Joyce
Yankees shortstop Didi Gregorius exited the team’s game Sunday with a “pretty significant” heel bruise and could be headed for the disabled list, manager Aaron Boone told Lindsay Adler of The Athletic and other reporters. He’d be the third integral member of the Yankees’ offense on the DL, joining right fielder Aaron Judge and catcher Gary Sanchez, with the Bombers trying to hold off the AL West runner-up (Houston, Oakland or Seattle) for homefield advantage in this year’s wild-card round. New York has a 3 1/2-game edge on that spot and a seven-game lead on a playoff position, thanks in part to Gregorius – who has slashed .270/.333/.482 (116 wRC+) with 22 home runs and 4.0 fWAR in 507 plate appearances. Replacing Gregorius would be a difficult task, then, and second baseman Gleyber Torres stands out as the Yankees’ top in-house option if the former does hit the DL. Torres has struggled mightily in the second half of his rookie year, though, and moving him off the keystone would force the Yankees to find a different starter there – perhaps Neil Walker (who has handled right field of late), Ronald Torreyes or Tyler Wade. Of course, New York could still bolster its lineup via trade this month, which it may feel compelled to do should Gregorius require a lengthy absence.
A few more injury notes from the AL…
- Orioles designated hitter Mark Trumbo is “likely” going to the DL on account of right knee inflammation, Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com tweets. Trumbo revealed in May that he has arthritis in that knee, though it hasn’t stopped him from posting fairly typical numbers in 2018. The 32-year-old has recorded a 106 wRC+, matching his career figure, across 355 PAs. That’s not an inspiring mark, however, and combining Trumbo’s so-so production with his knee problems and remaining salary may make it all but impossible for the rebuilding Orioles to trade him. Trumbo will earn $13.5MM in 2019, the final season of a three-year, $37.5MM contract that hasn’t worked out for Baltimore thus far.
- As with Trumbo, White Sox right fielder Avisail Garcia is battling his own right knee issues, Tom Musick of the Chicago Sun-Times explains. The plan is for Garcia to undergo arthroscopic surgery in the offseason, per Musick, but even though the White Sox are well out of contention, they don’t plan on shutting him down for 2018. This has already been an abbreviated campaign for Garcia, who missed nearly two months from April to June because of a hamstring strain. Perhaps thanks in part to his injury issues, the 27-year-old has slashed a disappointing .234/.264/.451 (90 wRC+) in 250 PAs after thriving in 2017. Garcia is slated to go through arbitration for the final time over the winter.
- Athletics outfielder Matt Joyce, who hasn’t played since July 4 because of a back strain, will rejoin the team when rosters expand in September, Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Joyce will begin a rehab assignment Tuesday, though Slusser suggests that playing time could be limited for the 34-year-old when he does return to Oakland. After offering solid production over the previous couple years, Joyce has batted just .203/.311/.359 (87 wRC+) in 226 PAs this season, and the A’s have been on a tear without him.
Activated From DL: Felix, Avisail, Delmonico
A few notable players were activated from the disabled list today…
- The Mariners have activated right-hander Felix Hernandez; he’d been on the DL with lower back tightness, though it’s possible the DL stint had more to do with roster management than with the injury itself. The 2010 AL Cy Young Award-winner has continued to trend downwards this season, evidenced by a 5.13 ERA (and a 4.64 FIP that doesn’t paint a much more optimistic picture). He also sports a 7.43 K/9 that would be a full-season career low. In order to make room for the righty on the active roster, Seattle has optioned outfielder John Andreoli to Triple-A Tacoma.
- White Sox outfielder Nicky Delmonico will finally return after missing two months with a broken hand. After an intriguing 2017 rookie season in which he hit .262/.373/.482, the 26-year-old has failed to replicate that type of production. His .217 batting average and .292 slugging percentage are both dreadful disappointments across his first 139 plate appearances of 2018, though his 11.5% walk rate is a nice silver lining.
- Avisail Garcia will also make a return to the White Sox. The 27-year-old enjoyed a tremendous breakout campaign last season during which he batted at a .330 clip and slugged 18 homers across 561 plate appearances. However, the 2018 season has seen him walk at just a 1.4% clip, so while his .282 batting average is fairly impressive, his .297 on-base percentage looks almost like a liability. He’s managed to hit nine homers and six doubles across 148 plate appearances, though, which makes for a .542 slugging percentage.