What Should Atlanta Braves Expect From Adonis Garcia?

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Aug 15, 2015; Atlanta, GA, USA; Arizona Diamondbacks right fielder Ender Inciarte (5) steals third base ahead of the tag by Atlanta Braves third baseman Adonis Garcia (24) in the ninth inning at Turner Field. The Diamondbacks won 8-4. Mandatory Credit: Jason Getz-USA TODAY Sports /

Pro-rating and Projecting

In 2015, Garcia logged 345 innings for Atlanta, committing 10 errors (8 of the ‘fielding’ variety) and costing the team 3 runs on defense. Fielding Bible numbers put him at 1 run below average… for those limited innings. That was over 42 games (41 starts), or 1/4th of the season.

If you were to pro-rate those numbers across ~150 games, that works out to 39 errors and 4 runs below average and -12 defensive runs saved.

Of the 20 qualified third basemen across the MLB in 2015, Pablo Sandoval was the worst, recording -11 DRS over 1034+ innings. That’s actually worse than Garcia’s rate… and by quite a bit. Yunel Escobar, Nick Castellanos, Aramis Ramirez and Matt Carpenter were also worse in DRS overall.

In terms of the raw errors, Garcia would have been the worst – easily – with Chase Headley and Brett Lawrie getting into the conversation. So it’s not going to be good by any means – though it also seems that baseball tolerates quite a lot in terms of bad third basemen.

Unfortunately, I don’t really see a good trend of improvement with the Winter League fielding.

On the offensive side of things, I am actually encouraged. Here’s why:

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4 minor-league seasons: .285 / .324 /. 411 / .736 OPS
12 Cuba/Venez seasons: .310 / .365 / .496 / .861 OPS
3 AAA (NYY/ATL) seasons: .291 / .329 / .407 / .736 OPS
1 MLB season (ATL 2015): .277 / .293 / .497 / .790

There’s really quite a bit of consistency there: yes – there’s a drop-off for the majors in terms of batting average, but Garcia was actually getting better as he went along:

July: .259
Aug: .262
Sept: .317

Garcia’s track record for consistent hitting is surprisingly good – regardless of the level, regardless of the league. The ability to stroke home runs last summer when he didn’t do much of that at Gwinnett was especially surprising. So while he won’t entirely duplicate Venezuelan numbers, I truly can’t believe that he’d be any worse offensively in 2016 than he was in 2015.

Frankly, when you line his bat up against the rest of those on the Braves’ roster right now, it compares favorably to all others but Freeman’s. You’d have to argue that it better had, if the Braves continue to use him at the position… and he’s probably better than Olivera defensively.

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We do not yet have a full picture about how Atlanta plans to use all of these multi-purpose players they’ve amassed. My guess was strictly that – a guess.

I expect that at least one or two of the utility players signed this Winter might be gone before the season starts. As for Garcia, the team will have to determine if there can be defensive improvement and whether the bat benefits will outweigh the defensive liabilities.

My expectation? The answer will probably be ‘no’ as a result of Fredi Gonzalez‘ lineup tinkering, for if he doesn’t allow Garcia to stay out there and work on his defense for a while… it will never get any better.

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