How a message over breakfast assured Derek Jeter the Marlins should sign Avisail Garcia
The Miami Marlins had heard all the right things from their first big prospective free agent signing of the offseason.
He said he understood the organization’s long-term plan, one that had been building over the past four years. He said he understood the end goal, one that will make the club perennial playoff contenders. He said he understood the build-up that was taking place and that he could be one of the final pieces to make that plan a reality.
But talk is one thing. Commitment is another.
“I wanted to look him in the eyes,” Marlins CEO Derek Jeter said.
So they met over breakfast in Coral Gables in mid-November. Jeter looked outfielder Avisail Garcia in the eyes.
Garcia made his pitch.
“I’m the kind of guy who likes to play hard,” Garcia said, recounting the message he gave at the breakfast. “I always do my best every single day and I prepare myself. I sacrifice a lot, and that’s what they’re looking for. They’re looking for the right players. I think they look for the people who have discipline, who play hard, who care about winning, and I’m that kind of guy.”
The end result: Garcia agreed to a four-year, $53 million deal with a club option for a fifth season. It’s the longest contract given out by the current ownership group led by Bruce Sherman and Jeter, who took over before the 2018 season.
It was one of several moves the Marlins made prior to the league’s collective bargaining agreement expiring on Dec. 2 and the league imposed a lockout of its players. The others, all of which formalized over a span of about 48 hours: Signing pitcher Sandy Alcantara to a five-year extension and trading for Gold Glove award winning catcher Jacob Stallings and All-Star infielder Joey Wendle.
“I’ve dealt with a lot of people in my life and I think I’m a pretty good judge of character in terms of when someone’s telling me the truth or not,” Jeter said of Garcia, “and you could see in his eye he was excited at the possibility of coming here. That’s what you want to hear.”
Garcia’s signing serves as one step to the Marlins addressing their biggest needs: Adding offensive production to a lineup that was among the worst in baseball last year.
Marlins general manager Kim Ng called Garcia “one of the most impactful outfield bats was the agent market this year.”
How do you quantify that? Look at his combination of putting the ball in play, hitting for power and speed — a trio of traits teams value.
The 30-year-old Garcia hits for average, boasting a career .270 batting average over 951 career games spanning 10 seasons. His career batting average on balls in play (which excludes strikeouts and home runs in the batting average formula) is .326, nearly 30 points above the MLB average of .297.
He has a career 40.6-percent hard-hit rate, defined by Statcast as the percentage of balls put into play with an exit velocity of at least 95 mph. That’s well above the MLB average of 35.3 percent. He had a career-best 46.3-percent hard-hit rate last season, which ranked in the 77th percentile of qualified hitters.
And he has speed, too. Garcia has posted an average sprint speed of at least 28 feet per second every year since Statcast began tracking data in 2015. MLB average is considered 27 feet per second. Garcia has ranked in the top fifth of baseball in sprint speed every year except for 2020.
“Overall, his metrics are definitely in line with what we were looking for,” said Ng, who noted that they are confident Garcia can be an every day center fielder if needed although he has primarily played right field over his career.
Beyond the statistics, though, is an internal focus that is pushing Garcia to succeed.
Some of it is fueled by the past few years, making the playoffs in three consecutive seasons (twice with the Milwaukee Brewers and once with the Tampa Bay Rays) only to be eliminated.
Some of it is fueled by the opportunity to play in his adopted home. Garcia, a Venezuela native, has owned a home in Miami the past few years.
Those two factors led him to the Marlins.
“I’ve been hearing that they’re going to make big moves,” Garcia said. “I want to win. They want to win. When you see the players they have, I think we’re good.”
This story was originally published December 13, 2021 at 6:30 AM.
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