Chicago White Sox: Avisail Garcia hoping for repeat of strong 2017 season

The White Sox are hoping to count on another strong effort out of Avisail Garcia in 2018.

Heading into the 2017 season, not much was expected out of Chicago White Sox outfielder Avisail Garcia.

In fact, many fans had given up hope that he would ever reach his potential. And for good reason.

Despite seemingly having all of the physical tools necessary to be successful, Garcia failed to impress during his first two full seasons in the league.

When he was acquired from the Detroit Tigers in a three-team deal at the 2013 trade deadline, Garcia was a 22-year-old bursting with potential. He had even been compared to Miguel Cabrera because of their similar physical appearance and skill set.

After coming over in the trade, Garcia initially showed signs that he might be the guy that the organization had envisioned by producing a .304/.327/.447 slash line in 42 games. It appeared that the Chicago White Sox may have a player that it could build around for the future.

That optimism was short-lived though as Garcia suffered a shoulder injury one week into the 2014 season. The injury would limit him to just 46 games and he would struggle to get into a rhythm finishing with a .244/.305/.413 slash line.

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Garcia went into the 2015 season healthy and ready to prove himself as a cornerstone of the Chicago White Sox organization. But the results over the next two seasons certainly left a lot to be desired.

Between the 2015 and 2016 seasons, Garcia produced a combined slash line of .251/.308/.375 and often looked lost at the plate. His lack of pitch recognition was becoming an issue as he piled up strikeouts while not drawing many walks.

In fact, according to FanGraphs, in 2016 Garcia led all of MLB in swinging strike percentage (17.2 percent) for players with over 400 at-bats. Not a ringing endorsement for a player that was expected to be a key cog in the middle of the lineup.

His inability to get on base was certainly concerning, but even more so was the fact that he wasn’t hitting for power or driving in runs. 25 homeruns and 110 RBIs were the numbers that the Chicago White Sox organization were hoping for him to produce in one season, not over two seasons.

Despite the results, GM Rick Hahn opted to avoid arbitration and signed Garcia to a one year, $3 million dollar deal prior to the 2017 season.

After two disappointing seasons, it was time for Garcia to prove himself. And that he did.

The 2017 season would see Garcia reach his first All-Star game while producing career highs in batting average (.330), on-base percentage (.380), slugging percentage (.506), homeruns (18), RBIs (80), hits (171), doubles (27) and WAR (4.2). And it didn’t stop there.

Although his meager walk percentage of 5.9 percent remained near his career average (6.1 percent), he had reached the lowest strikeout percentage (19.8 percent) of his career. The 19.8 percent was nearly a six percent drop from the 2016 season.

Another good sign was that his swinging strike percentage dropped from a league-leading 17.2 percent to 16.2 percent. This had a lot to do with the fact that he was simply swinging at better pitches.

Per FanGraphs, Garcia also posted career bests in 2017 for percentage of pitches swung at in the strike zone (83.4 percent) and percentage of pitches swung at outside the strike zone (39.8 percent). His plate discipline clearly made a difference.

His jump in power numbers (50 extra-base hits in 2017 compared to 32 in 2016) likely came as a result of pulling the ball more. In 2017, 42.6 percent of his hits were pulled, which was also a career high and well above his career average of 37.7 percent according to FanGraphs.

And oh by the way, Garcia also hammered left-handed pitching in 2017.

The question now becomes, can Garcia sustain the success?

After winning his salary arbitration case last month, he will now earn $6.7 million in 2018. And with the jump in salary will come increased expectations.

Chicago White Sox manager, Rick Renteria, believes that Garcia now has the right mindset to build upon last season’s success.

“He’s coming to camp full of confidence,” Renteria said. “When you have a pretty significant breakout year for him, he should go out there and not try to do too much, just stay within himself and let the numbers kind of take care of themselves. “If you trust the work that you’re putting in and you have confidence in your ability, you have the opportunity to repeat good output and a positive result in terms of what we can expect during the course of the season.”

With the youth movement happening on the south side, Garcia comes into the 2018 season as one of the veterans on the team at only 26 years old. He will be looked to for a leadership role both on and off the field.

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Most importantly though, the White Sox are hoping for similar production from Garcia in the middle of the lineup. The team has control of him through the end of the 2019 season and Hahn would love for Garcia to prove that he is worth keeping around in 2020 and beyond.