Fantasy Baseball: 10 Players Who Surprised Us in 2017
Avisail Garcia, OF, Chicago White Sox
Preseason ADP: 408.10
It's hard for me to truly explain why Chicago White Sox outfielder Avisail Garcia was basically ignored by fantasy baseball owners on draft day, so I'm going to use a chart instead.
The below table compares his OPS, ISO, homers, RBI, wRC+, and fWAR between his 2017 season and everything that came before it (2012-16).
| Year | PA | OPS | ISO | HR | RBI | wRC+ | fWAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012-16 | 1,551 | .695 | .127 | 39 | 173 | 90 | -1.2 |
| 2017 | 561 | .885 | .176 | 18 | 80 | 137 | 4.2 |
The breakout campaign is undeniable and he proved to be a very worthwhile pickup off the waiver wire immediately -- in 93 April plate appearances, he slashed .368/.409/.621 with 5 homers and 20 RBI.
Despite all that, it's really hard for me to be convinced that Garcia has turned his career around following this stellar performance. A lot of it has to do with the fact that his approach didn't change very much. Check out his batted-ball profile below between the same periods of time -- we'll specifically be looking at his line-drive rate (LD%), ground-ball rate (GB%), fly-ball rate (FB%), hard-hit rate (Hard%) and BABIP.
| Year | LD% | GB% | FB% | Hard% | BABIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012-16 | 21.6% | 53.2% | 25.2% | 31.3% | .320 |
| 2017 | 20.3% | 52.2% | 27.5% | 35.3% | .392 |
It's more or less exactly the same, except for a rise in his BABIP. With plate-discipline numbers that also haven't changed much, it's hard to feel confident in a hitter who's still heavily dependent on ground balls -- his BABIP for this batted-ball event never rose above .247 between 2014 and 2016, but it settled in at .362 this year.
Could he just be one of those hitters that bucks the typical trend? Maybe, but we need to at least see him do this again next year.
