This past season, guys like Dermis Garcia were a breath of fresh air offering hope for the future at the end of a pretty terrible season in Oakland A’s franchise history.
Before making his big-league debut with the A’s, Garcia had a .264 batting average, a .349 OBP, and had 13 homers in 68 games in Las Vegas. In his 30th inning, his first with the A’s, he was hitting . 333 with his two homers, gaining more playing time in the final month and plus of the season. He went 86-for-14 (. 162) with three home runs remaining.
Heading into the offseason, Garcia felt like he did enough to earn a roster spot as the team’s first baseman heading into the season opener, especially with the power potential he showed.
The A’s ranked 27th with 137 home run hits in 2022, one ahead of Washington and one behind Kansas City. With Garcia’s power, the A’s could add some bang to the lineup.
As the season drew to a close, the A’s began bringing in players from Waver, a more contact-oriented bat that seems to follow the model of the Cleveland Guardians. Conor Capel, who was waived by the Cardinals in September, played a total of 25 games in St. Louis and Oakland last season, but he’s batting just 16.9%, making him a player with a lot of contact. is.
Ernie Clement was waived by Cleveland in late September and has batted under 15% in both 110-game major trips over the past two seasons. New additions Jace Peterson and Aredomis Diaz both strike out less.
This is one reason why the route to Dermis Garcia’s playtime is a bit hazy at the moment. Last season, in 125 major league at-bats, he posted his 44% batting average. Joey Gallo batted .160, .280, .280, hit 19 home runs, and had a “only” 39.8% strikeout percentage last season. Garcia’s 44% mark isn’t sustainable.
Former A slugger Chris Davis’ highest strikeout rate in a season when he was still hitting homers and batting .247 was 29.9% in 2017. Dahmis his target for Garcia this season must be his 29.9%. Because there is another reason why his playing time can be reduced. It’s Ryan Noda.
The A’s selected Ryan Noda with the second overall pick in this month’s Rule 5 Draft. Noda is a left-handed first baseman who can also roam the outfield, and the fact that the A’s have attempted to acquire him in past trades with the Dodgers means the selected player must stay on his 26-man roster. Added to Rule 5 stipulation that it must not. For the entire regular season, that means he could very well be the A’s Opening Day first baseman.
Noda is well above the league average in every stop in the minors, batting .259 with a .395 on-base percentage, hitting 25 home runs and walking 16% of his time in Triple-A last season. . He also recorded his 28.2% strikeouts in his PCL and Dermiz Garcia recorded a magical 29.9% of his strikeouts in the same league, so Noda isn’t a slam dunk, but a pretty compelling tool. i have a set
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That’s not to say Garcia is destined to start the season in Triple-A (he has three options left).He’s also a solid defender at first base, according to Outs Above Average. did. He recorded 4 OAAs in just 249 innings at that position, putting him second among all first basemen in 2022.
A doesn’t have a clear answer in DH. Using the revolving door, he has no choice but to take a day off from playing on the field. Garcia still has strong power that could prove useful to the A’s team as they look to win a few more games in 2023.
The key to securing that roster spot is reducing K’s, which he seems to be trying to do.
Garcia posted this on his Instagram story a few days ago, but it looks like his leg kicks are only working 60% right now. This appears to be a reduced version of the leg kick he used.
This may not seem like a big deal, but if he can successfully implement this change, he should be able to reach the ball more often and improve his timing at bat.
Looking at his baseball savant page, it looks like he had his numbers on off-speed pitches, especially curveballs and changeups. He hinted at two-thirds of the curves he saw and 69.6% of the change. He also whiffed in his 60% of his 4 seamers that he swung, so it seems the pitcher was mixing things up and throwing him off balance.
If he’s really working on reducing his leg kicks, he should be able to reach many of those pitches.
Leg kicks also help cover the bottom corner on the outside where he had an exit speed of 73.41 mph. This is where pitch recognition helps a lot.
If he can make better contact in that one spot and work on unlocking close pitches around the plate, there’s no place in the strike zone where he can’t make at least good contact. .
Ryan Noda would probably like to land a first base job to kick off the season, but with spring rolling around, Damisu Garcia could still make his way into this roster .