Here’s a bad thing — I’m already excited about drafting Avisail Garcia. I’m writing this in November and posting it in December and am already excited about him. This is dangerous. My expectations are already through the roof. I just have this feeling that this is gonna spell D-O-O-M. See, I can’t have anything nice. Watch a story come out that Avisail and his brother, Jpegsail, are in some kind of weird fishing accident or get arrested with a megaton of weed. Or something. Something will happen. Though, I’m praying and vsdnjs;nzwc — Oops — and crossing my fingers that nothing happens to Avisail. That he makes it to Opening Day as the starting right fielder for the White Sox and batting third. Yes, third. Who else is batting in that lineup? Jose Abreu? I went over my Jose Abreu fantasy and he can be solid, but he’s more of a cleanup hitter. Maybe Avisail is batting 2nd. But there’s no way he’s below fifth. Beckham’s three shades of crizzap, Alexei Ramirez is a’ight but not a three hole hitter, Dunn and Konerko are either gone or hot garbage that is four years past its born-on date and Viciedo is great…every three weeks for two days at a time. Who else is batting third? Phegley? Why? The White Sox need someone whose last name sounds like it’s being pronounced with a fur ball in your mouth? Avisail Garcia will have every opportunity to succeed, so what can we expect of him in 2014 fantasy baseball and what makes him a sleeper?
We’ll get the negatives out of the way first. Avisail is so allergic to walks he sneeze-swings on potential ball fours. He once broke out in hives just watching Jonathan Sanchez warming up. Last year in 256 plate appearances, he walked 9 times. Hehe. That’s awful. So, with any guy that doesn’t take a walk there’s always a chance they fall into a terrible slump and can’t swing their way out. Usually starts as a one week slump, then they’re 1-for-56 with zero walks and the club is talking about them going to the minors and they’re talking to a shrink about their mommy issues. It can get ugly. This has never — I repeat in big letters — NEVER been an issue for Garcia anywhere in his career. He makes solid contact and has good speed, so he projects to have a good BABIP and shouldn’t hit below .260, in the worst case scenario. The positives are too many to mention, but I’ll try. He hits line drives, but is not afraid to homer, he can steal twenty bases, hit for .300, will be in a hitters’ park, has little competition for playing time, hits righties well, and learned the Serbo-Croatian language in three weeks without use of the Rosetta Stone. No task too hard for Garcia; no feat too small unless he’s looking at the bottom of a dwarf’s legs. A 20/20 season seems within the realm of possibility, but I won’t go that far with my projections. For 2014, I’ll give him the line of 75/18/79/.287/14 with the chance to blow those projections out of the water without getting in any weird fishing accident with Jpegsail.
