Marlins need more production from Avisail Garcia. What the team is seeing from him

Avisail Garcia felt good at the plate during the Miami Marlins’ just-completed three-game series with the Cleveland Guardians. That’s a good thing.

Whether that feeling continues as the season continues is important as the Marlins attempt to stay on their run of success.

The Marlins signed Garcia to a four-year deal ahead of the 2021 season with the hopes that he would be an impact bat in the middle of their lineup. It’s safe to say the results more often than not have not been there from the veteran outfielder. He hit just .224 with a .317 slugging mark in 98 games last season, missing more than a third of the season due to an assortment of injuries.

Heading into Miami’s four-game series against the Atlanta Braves on Monday, it has been more of the same so far in 2022 with Garcia hitting just .164 with a .498 on-base-plus-slugging percentage over his first 17 games of the season with twice as many strikeouts (18) as hits (nine).

But first-year Marlins manager Skip Schumaker saw a few glimpses in Cleveland that he hopes could spark a turnaround for Garcia.

Schumaker said Garcia recently made an adjustment at the plate, making his stance a little wider so he can be “a little more grounded and stronger” with his swing.

In a small sample size, it appears to have worked.

In Game 1 of the Marlins’ doubleheader against the Guardians on Saturday, a 6-1 win, Garcia had hard-hit balls in three of his four at-bats. He went hitless in the first three of those at-bats — including a lineout in the fourth that Cleveland center fielder Myles Straw tracked down to make a running catch to rob a potential extra-base hit — before lacing an RBI single to center in the seventh inning as part of a three-run rally.

And then in the eighth inning Sunday, Garcia hit his second home run of the season, sending a near middle-middle fastball from Cleveland reliever James Karinchak a projected 417 feet to left-center field.

“I feel better,” Garcia said. “There’s no doubt about it. That’s part of the game.”

Diving a little deeper courtesy of data from Statcast, a few things to note about Garcia’s performance at the plate so far this season:

▪ Garcia has a hard-hit rate, defined as the percent of balls he puts in play with an exit velocity of at least 95 mph, of 45.9 percent. That’s the second-highest mark of his career, just below the 46.4 percent mark he had in 2021 and just above his 44.8-percent rate last season. However, hitting the ball hard has not led to solid results for Garcia in his two years in Miami unlike what he was able to do in 2021 in his final year with the Milwaukee Brewers (.262 average, .490 slugging, .820 OPS, 29 home runs).

▪ Garcia’s average launch angle so far this season is 10.6 degrees, which generally equates to a low line drive. However, his average has gotten to that point this season because of how extreme his batted balls have been. More than half of his balls in play have been groundballs, while a staggering 13.5 percent have been popups — well above his career average of 4.3 percent. He is only hitting line drives 16.2 percent of the time when he puts the ball in play, well below his career average of 24 percent.

▪ Garcia also has just a .200 batting average on balls in play (BABIP), which excludes home runs and strikeouts from the batting average equation. Of 252 players with at 50 plate appearances through games played Sunday, only 14 have a BABIP lower than Garcia. His career average is .321, which makes sense considering his hitter profile.

“It’s still early,” Schumaker said. “We’re 20-something games into the season.”

At some point sooner than later, though, it’s not going to be “still early” in the season and the results are going to be what they are.

Caribbean Series teams announced

The Marlins on Monday announced the six countries participating in the 2024 Caribbean Series, which will be held at loanDepot park.

In addition to the champion from each of the four professional baseball leagues in the Caribbean Professional Baseball Confederation (the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Venezuela), Curacao and Nicaragua will also have a team represented in the tournament, which takes place during MLB’s offseason.

The Marlins will hold a “Serie del Caribe Celebration” at loanDepot park on Saturday when Miami hosts the Chicago Cubs. It will include a pre-game, on-field ceremony to recognize the six teams. Hall of Famer Vladimir Guerrero Sr. and 11-time Gold Glove winner Omar Vizquel will throw out the ceremonial first pitch.