Avisail Garcia had a fantastic 2017 season, posting a 4.2 fWAR, and recording a .330 batting average. The White Sox finally saw what Garcia was capable of after some underwhelming seasons on the South Side.
One problem, though. With his .330 batting average and .392 BABIP, everyone saw regression coming for Garcia in 2018, and after the first three weeks of the season it has been tough for the White Sox outfielder.
Despite his build, Garcia has never been a power hitter, as his 18 home runs in 2017 were a career-high and he doesn’t walk much either, recording a 5.9% walk rate in more than 2,000 plate appearances since making his MLB debut in 2012. So, Garcia absolutely has to hit for a high average to give the White Sox value because he’s not going to provide a lot of power and he doesn’t get on base via walks either.
Just how bad has Garcia been in 2018? Well, he has a .225 batting average through 17 games and thanks to being hit twice his OBP is all the way up to .243. Out of his 16 hits, only four have gone for extra bases, (1 HR, 3 doubles) giving him a woeful .310 slugging %.
Garcia has taken 74 plate appearances and still hasn’t drawn a walk. Zero. Zilch. Zip. No walks for Garcia yet.
How bad is that? Well, here’s a list of pitchers, yes pitchers, who have more walks than Garcia as of April 23.
This obviously doesn’t include Shohei Ohtani, who comes up on MLB.com as a pitcher when looking at the hitting splits for pitchers.
Pitchers with more walks than Avisail Garcia
- Patrick Corbin: 2 (12 plate appearances)
- Zack Greinke: 2 (10 plate appearances)
- Stephen Strasburg: 2 (12 plate appearances)
- Tyler Anderson: 1 (8 plate appearances)
- Eddie Butler: 1 (3 plate appearances)
- Jorge de la Rosa: 1 (1 plate appearance)
- Jacob DeGrom: 1 (12 plate appearances)
- Mike Mayers: 1 (1 plate appearance)
- Miles Mikolas: 1 (11 plate appearances)
- Sean Newcomb: 1 (10 plate appearances)
- Aaron Nola: 1 (12 plate appearances)
- Dillon Peters: 1 (7 plate appearances)
- Tyson Ross: 1 (9 plate appearances)
- Hyun-Jin Ryu: 1 (10 plate appearances)
- Anibal Sanchez: 1 (4 plate appearances)
- Brent Suter: 1 (7 plate appearances)
Eddie Butler, Jorge de la Rosa and Mike Mayers all have one more walk than Garcia and they’re relief pitchers.
Garcia will be in his final year of arbitration in 2019, and if this continues there’s no doubt the White Sox will gladly let him walk in free agency.
But again, it is only April, so of course Garcia has plenty of time to turn things around, but relying on having a .330 batting average to give your team any value sure does give you little wiggle room to struggle.
