Last season I wrote a Player Profile about Avisail Garcia. Let’s go through it in brief. Quoting myself…
“There is risk about the power production, the steals aren't a lock either, and with a less than ideal approach at the dish expecting more than what we've seen to this point in the batting average category is a bit risky… I wouldn't fault anyone for making him a reserve round add or an early season add off waivers if an injury strikes one of your outfielders. Power/speed potential like this package should intrigue everyone.” I also said a best case scenario would be 15/10 and he would more than likely be lucky to be a 10/10 guy.
The response from readers painted me as a moron.
Knuck2 – “…you seem to be basing your 2015 projection on some last year's numbers, which I think should be better based on his health and weight.”
Hugh Brammer – “I think I have to join in on the question of last year's injury and return. I may be reading too much into this but when you say last year Garcia hit JUST [emph added] .244 after hitting .283 in 2013...you make it sound like suddenly his skills disappeared or it was a shocking drop.”
Guest (apparently not wanting to be identified): “Yea i feel like your looking at 2014 to much he missed most of the year an at the beginning he was on fire with abreu for a few weeks, i read an article konerko said two years ago Garcia could hit 40 hrs he was his teammate i think full health an at bats easily 20 hrs maybe 25 an 12-15 sb 20 is ceiling but he did steal 20 in the minors.”
As you will see Ray, not the crowd, got this one right.
*REMEMBER THIS. Every spring everyone projects ALL young talented players to succeed. The fact is that they simply do not.
Here is a link to all the players that have been reviewed in the 2016 Player Profile Series.
THE MINORS
2008: The Venezuelan born Garcia appeared in 63 games as a 17 year old in the Venezuelan Summer league for the Tigers after being signed as a free agent. He hit .298 with a .791 OPS. Went deep seven times with 34 RBI.
2009: Appeared in 84 games at Low and High-A ball. Hit just .264 with a .610 OPS as he struggled to walk just eight times against 72 punchouts in his first season of North American baseball.
2010: In 125 games at Single-A, Garcia hit .281 with four homers and 63 RBI. Had a mere .669 OPS over 524 plate appearances. Also swiped 20 bases displaying his speed.
2011: Played 129 games at High-A hitting .264 with a .686 OPS. He hit 11 homers with 56 RBI and 53 runs scored. Stole 14 bases for good measure.
2012: Hit 14 homers with 58 RBI and 78 runs scored. He managed to steal a career best 23 bases as well over the 122 games at High-A and Double-A ball. Hit .299 with a .789 OPS.
2013: Appeared in 47 games at High-A and Triple-A. Garcia hit .379 with a .991 OPS as he lit it up. Hit seven homers and stole six bases as he also scored 38 times while knocking in 36 runners.
2014: Saw action in 13 games hitting .340 with a homer and three RBI.
TOTALS: .291/.326/.410 with 45 homers, 281 RBI, 306 runs scored and 78 steals over 583 games.
THE MAJORS
2012: Saw action in 23 games for the Tigers. He hit .319 over 47 at-bats with no homers and three runs batted in.
2013: Traded to the White Sox as part of a three team deal. The Detroit Tigers sent Brayan Villarreal to the Boston Red Sox. The Chicago White Sox sent Jake Peavy to the Boston Red Sox. The Boston Red Sox sent Jose Iglesias to the Detroit Tigers. The Boston Red Sox sent Francellis Montas (minors), Cleuluis Rondon (minors) and Jeffrey Wendelken (minors) to the Chicago White Sox. Appeared in 72 games on the year batting .283 with seven homers, 31 RBI and 31 runs scored.
2014: Saw action in 46 games hitting seven homers with 29 RBIs. Hit a mere .244 and walked 14 times.
2015: Had his best season to date batting .257 with 13 homers, 59 RBI and 66 runs scored. He only was successful on 7-of-14 steal attempts though.
APPROACH / AVERAGE
Garcia has hit .264 for his career which includes a .257 mark last season. Are there reasons to think that number will improve?
Garcia owns a .324 BABIP for his career. That’s a strong mark. He also owns a 21.6 line drive rate for his career. So why does he own such a poor batting average despite two above average numbers? Let’s look to his approach.
Garcia has walked 62 times… in his 4-year career. Garcia has 62 walks in 1,098 plate appearances leading to a terrible 5.6 percent walk rate. Horrible.
Garcia has a 23.1 percent K-rate for his career.
Add those two numbers up and his 0.24 BB/K ratio is less than 2/3 the big league average.
It gets worse.
For his career Garcia owns a 17.0 percent swinging strike rate. That’s nearly double the league average of 9.5 percent. He swings at, and misses, everything.
Last season he had a 60.2 percent swing rate on all pitches (58.9 percent for his career). His swinging percentage last season of 60.2 percent was the third highest in baseball. The only two men who swung at more pitches than Garcia were Marlon Byrd (61.6) and Adam Jones (61.1). Those two men have had success despite swinging at everything, so it can be done. However, don’t fool yourself. This is a terrible approach and it leaves a player wide open to being taken advantage of by pitcher’s who can make “their” pitch. It’s just awful really.
It gets worse.
Garcia posted a 46.6 percent swing rate last season on pitches outside the strike zone. That was the third worst mark in baseball behind Pablo Sandoval (48.6) and Jones (47.7).
The guy has no discernment whatsoever. He just swings at everything.
As a result he has a .311 career OBP, a mark he has failed to reach in any of the last three seasons. He just doesn’t get on base.
POWER
Garcia has 27 homers in 1,016 at-bats. Obviously that’s an average of about 14 homers per 510 at-bats. There are like a bunch of guys who can do that. Not impressive at all.
Garcia has a solid 13.5 percent HR/F ratio for his career. Unfortunately, he doesn’t drive the ball very well, at least not consistently. Not only does he own a mere .121 Isolated Power mark for his career, amongst players with 1,000 plate appearances the last four seasons that mark is 225th in baseball, but he also doesn’t lift the ball at all. For his career Garcia has a 2.02 GB/FB ratio. The number has gone down each of the last three years, but his 1.83 mark last season still stinks for a guy who is supposed to be a power hitter. Easily seen this is in his 52.5 percent career ground ball rate.
He also doesn’t pull the ball very much with a 35.5 percent pull rate for his career. That’s not likely an approach that will lead to a ton of homers either.
SPEED
Back on January 28th, Garcia admitted he was too big last season. He tried to get in better shape this offseason and enters the season planning on running a bit more. I warned about this last season. The guy is about 6’4” and 245 lbs. That’s a lot of man to get a runnin’. He did swipe 20 bags back in 2010, 14 in 2011 and then 23 in 2012. He can run a bit. Still, with a below league average OBP, and a terrible success rate in the bigs (14 steals on 27 attempts), it’s hard to envision him doing anything other than barely reaching 10 thefts, even in a best case scenario.
SPLITS
Garcia has a nearly .100 point drop when he faces a righty. Here are his career numbers.
vs. lefty: .284/.341/.424
vs. righty: .256/.300/.370
He’s the same crappy hitter at home and on the road.
Home: .262/.311/.379
Road: .265/.312/.391
Don’t forget to pick up your copy of the 2016 MLB Draft Guide which includes more than 600 Players Ranked, auction values, .png)
rookie reports, hitting and pitching targets as well as all the info you need if you’re ready to start playing DFS.
OUTLOOK
Garcia is a talented, big, 24 year old who has yet to figure it out. He doesn’t turn 25 until June so there’s still a chance that his talent wins out, but to this point he has shown none of the refinement or growth that would lead anyone to logically believe that will happen in 2016.
10-team Mixed: No need to look his way at the draft table.
12-team Mixed: A reserve round addition for talent alone. Take him at a point where he’s a reserve outfielder though. He’s too risky a bet to improve, or even to play a full season worth of games, to risk an earlier selection.
15-team Mixed: A potential fifth outfielder here depending on how you structure your team. Would still like to see him rostered as a reserve round option. Still, when you get down to the level of the Dalton Pompey’s and Stephen Piscotty’s of the world…
AL-Only: There have been plenty of rumors that Garcia could be traded. That makes rostering him in this format a bit risky. Make sure if you add him you’re in a league where you can hold on to him even if he’s dealt to the National League. Also note that the White Sox are likely growing impatient with Garcia which means a slow start could lead to a demotion which causes him to be a less than full-time player, potentially filling the role of a platoon mate – one who hits lefties which is obviously the wrong side of a platoon to be on.
To see where Garcia ranks take a look at our 2016 Rankings that are part of the MLB Draft Guide.
Ray Flowers can be heard Monday through Friday, 7 PM EDT and Friday on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210, XM 87). You can also hear Ray Sunday nights at 6 PM on the channel talking fantasy sports. Follow Ray’s work at Fantasy Alarm and on Twitter (@baseballguys).