It's not about walks -- he swings and makes contact with terrible pitches. His O-Swing% (46.6%) was worst on the team by more than eight percentage points, and third worst in the entire MLB (league average was 31.3%). This causes him to make bad contact, which is a significant contributor to his curiously low power numbers.

Right, but that he has a good walk rate (relatively speaking) suggests that there is some skill there that perhaps can be developed. And, yes, he needs more power.

Maybe he should pull the ball more - just a thought.

Right, but that he has a good walk rate (relatively speaking) suggests that there is some skill there that perhaps can be developed. And, yes, he needs more power.

Maybe he should pull the ball more - just a thought.

That walk rate could also represent the fact that pitchers did not need to throw him strikes to regularly get him out.

I'm surprised that probably 80% of this board wants to throw Avi out with the bath water now, when he's only in his age 24-25 season. Guys like Carlos Gomez or Aaron Rowand come to mind as guys who didn't develop until age 26 or 27. I realize we have a limited time to contend here and we should be trying to win now, but still, maybe management is gambling he can have a rebound season and put up some decent numbers. There's no guarantee any of the FA or trade options left are going to produce more than Avi this year, I suspect.

Just remember this though - it's the White Sox who keep making "all in" style bets, trading for guys who are free agents in either 1 or 2 years, and then relying on Avi. They're the one setting the clock on him. If he turns into Jose Bautista at age 27, but the White Sox keep betting he's a solid player when he's 24-25 when he can't be, the end result is several more lost seasons because of those bad bets.

 

I'd have no problem with Avi Garcia starting in RF on a rebuilding team right now. He's exactly the kind of player a rebuilding team should look to start in their OF - talented, good work ethic, but needs a major overhaul to become a good player. If he busts, hey who cares, the team was rebuilding they'll look somewhere else.

I don't...my initial reaction says his stance is just a bit more open giving him a little better look instead of so much "side eye" as I like to call it....which usually helps with pitch recognition. I'll have to go back and look at other vid

His pre-load is very similar to Miguel Cabrera now.

 

 

I like that he's more open in my very amateur opinion it should help him increase his pull power. That said, unless he improves his pitch selection he's going to keep hitting a lot weak ground balls to 2B. He's not Vlad, nobody is, gotta swing at stuff in the zone.