Brewers’ Garcia showing marked improvement in plate discipline

The early returns on Avisail Garcia have been good.

The Milwaukee Brewers signed the outfielder this past offseason to a two-year contract with a team option for 2022.

It might have seemed something of a luxury at the time, but with Ryan Braun moved to designated hitter – which didn’t exist in the National League when Garcia signed – and Lorenzo Cain opting out of the 2020 season, Garcia quickly has become a key cog for the Brewers.

With Cain out, it’s been Garcia playing center field the past two games for Milwaukee after beginning the year in right field.

Center, right … the Brewers just need Garcia’s bat in the lineup.

While Milwaukee’s offense has struggled out of the gate, the same can’t be said of Garcia.

Most notably, Garcia, in his ninth major-league season, has shown increased plate discipline in 2020. Like, by a lot.

Garcia is showing improvement over his career numbers in on-base percentage, walks per plate appearance, swing percentage, chase percentage and pitches per plate appearance. It’s a small sample size for sure, but it’s a good early trend.

While Garcia hasn’t homered yet, he does have three doubles among his seven hits, an XBH% of 10.3 (compared to 7.4% in his career previously).

Again, it’s only been seven games. But Milwaukee is only playing (around) 60. If these are new Garcia trends, we look forward to seeing his final numbers.

Other Notes

— Milwaukee second baseman Keston Hiura can hit – and hit hard. His average exit velocity of 94.2 mph ranks third among MLB players 23 years old or younger (min. 25 AB). Chicago’s Eloy Jimenez (93.4) is fourth.

— The White Sox are scoring 3.36 runs per game with two outs. That’s easily the best figure in MLB, with San Diego second at 2.67 and Tampa Bay third at 2.36.

— The Brewers lead MLB in opponent batting average with runners in scoring position, .161. Only two other teams are under .200 – Washington (.163) and Colorado (.191).

— Wednesday’s starter, Adrian Houser, is allowing an average exit velocity of 85.9 mph since July 30, 2019, which is fifth lowest in the National League over that span.

Statistics courtesy Sportradar and baseball-reference.com