Avisail Garcia, Tampa Bay Rays
2018 fWAR: 0.0
2019 fWAR (so far): 1.3
Similar to Giolito, it wasn’t going to be a huge undertaking for Garcia to outperform last year’s fWAR. His current numbers (.291/.352/.511 triple slash, 130 wRC+ through 199 plate appearances) actually resemble his 2017 breakout with the White Sox. The good part is there are some peripherals to back it up.
Garcia’s 44.5% hard-hit rate is on pace to improve for the fifth consecutive season, and it’s accompanied by a 43.8% ground-ball rate, which would be a career-best mark if the season ended today. He’s still swinging a lot (55.8% swing rate) and missing a lot (19.4% swinging-strike rate), but at least his chase rate is down slightly at the moment (43.9% to 40.3%).
The outfielder has gotten to this point thanks to a huge month of May. Check out how his strikeout rate (K%), OPS, and wRC+ differ from one month to the next.
Even if his production starts to tail off moving forward, Tampa Bay has gotten plenty of bang for its buck after signing Garcia to a one-year, $3.5 million deal over the winter.
About Matt Musico
Matt Musico currently manages Chin Music Baseball and contributes to The Sports Daily. His past work has been featured at numberFire, Yahoo! Sports and Bleacher Report. He’s also written a book and created an online class about how to get started as a sports blogger. Check those out and more helpful tips on sports blogging at his website.
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