Brewers: Avisail Garcia Is the Perfect Non Traditional Clean-Up Hitter

2020 was Avisail Garcia’s first season with the Milwaukee Brewers. He signed a two year $20MM deal with a club option for the 2022 season. Unfortunately, his first season as a Brewer was not very memorable.

With Lorenzo Cain opting out of the season, Garcia made the transition as the team’s everyday centerfielder. With the increased physical demand of that position he also battled a nagging ankle injury throughout the season. As a result, his offensive output was well below his career average.

During the off-season Garcia’s biggest change was to his health. With cutting sugar out of his diet he lost 36 pounds and reported to spring training in the best shape of his life. Throughout Cactus League play he displayed tremendous power and is now Craig Counsell’s cleanup batter of choice.

Traditionally, clean up hitters are one of a team’s biggest power threats. This is not true for the Brewers and Avisail Garcia, who is more of a blend of moderate power and respectable batting average.

Throughout his career, Garcia has a .270 batting average. His career high in home runs is 20 and excluding the 2020 season he is averaging16.4 home runs per season. These career numbers do not scream “insert in the cleanup spot”.

So why put Garcia in the cleanup spot?

With being a higher batting average type player, Garcia can still protect Christian Yelich. He additionally can serve as another table setter for the players farther down in the lineup.

Garcia will be batting behind Yelich and teams are going to be less willing to walk him knowing that Garcia has the ability to get base hits which will allow Yelich to run. As an excellent base runner anything Garcia hits in the gap could potentially score Yelich from first base. This should force team to pitch more to Yelich, thus protecting him.

As for after Garcia in the lineup, likely players who will be batting behind him are Jackie Bradley Jr, Travis Shaw, and Omar Narvaez.  All three traditionally hit more home runs than Garcia, but as you know the more players you have on base the more runs you are going to score.  This is why having Garcia as a table setter in the cleanup spot make sense!

Despite being non traditional, for the moment having Garcia in the cleanup spot appears to be a win-win situation for the Brewers.  It is entirely possible that this season Garcia sets a new career high in home runs given his increased physical ability, but whether this occurs or not I still do believe that the cleanup spot is a great spot in the batting order for him.

Craig Counsell has never been afraid to go non-traditional with his lineup construction, and that holds true every time he pencils Garcia into the cleanup spot.