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Marlins to designate veteran outfielder for assignment
Miami Marlins right fielder Avisail Garcia. Sam Navarro-USA TODAY Sports

The Marlins are designating veteran outfielder Avisail Garcia for assignment, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports

The 32-year-old Garcia (33 next week) is in the third season of a four-year, $53M contract that has proven to be a substantial misstep for the organization.

Garcia’s four-year contract with the Fish came on the heels of a productive 29-homer showing in Milwaukee. He hit .262/.330/.490 in his final season with the Brewers. 

While he’d been inconsistent on a year-over-year basis in the seasons leading up to his big Miami payday, he notched an overall .278/.335/.464 batting line in a half decade’s worth of at-bats before putting pen to paper as a free agent in South Florida. 

He’d also shown a repeated knack for hard contact, logging an 89.9 mph average exit velocity, 10 percent barrel rate and 42 percent hard-hit rate in those five years (all via Statcast).

A downward spiral for Garcia began almost immediately with the Marlins. He struggled right out of the gate in 2022, and while he did get hot for a bit in June, his overall batting line in Year 1 of that four-year contract checked in at a tepid .224/.266/.317. 

By measure of wRC+, he was 37 percent worse than the league average at the plate. Even a modest rebound in 2023 seemed likely, but Garcia’s numbers went further in the wrong direction. Injuries limited him to only 118 plate appearances, during which he hit just .185/.241/.315 while fanning in an uncharacteristic 33 percent of his plate appearances. 

This article first appeared on MLB Trade Rumors and was syndicated with permission.

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