Freddy Garcia's return to the White Sox was very solid. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
Freddy Garcia's miraculous return to the White Sox after a two and a half-season absence didn't ultimately have much of an impact on 2009, but it could have an impact on 2010. In just nine starts, Garcia may have pitched himself into the Sox' 2010 rotation—something that nobody could have expected when Garcia made his first start back with the Sox Aug. 18.
The White Sox smartly picked up Garcia's $1 million option for 2010 right after the season ended. He'll be penciled in as the team's fifth starter next year, but if he runs into an injury the Sox do have a viable backup in Daniel Hudson.
Key stats
GS: 9
IP: 56.0
W: 3
L: 4
ERA: 4.34
ERA+: 108
FIP: 3.35
BB: 12
BB/9: 1.93
SO: 37
K/9: 5.95
K/BB: 3.08
HR/9: 0.64
WHIP: 1.21
OPS: .690
GB/FB: 1.08
BABIP: .301
WAR: 1.6
It wasn't pretty, but Garcia simply got the job done in his nine starts. Seven of those nine were quality starts—exactly what a team should want from its fifth starter.
Garcia's ERA doesn't tell the full story—it's inflated by two bad starts, one of which was his first start in the majors since last September. His FIP is a better indicator of how well Garcia pitched—that 3.35 mark was the best of any Sox starter not named Jake Peavy (and Peavy only made three starts—not exactly a large enough sample size).
So how did Garcia do it? First of all, he kept his walks down. His 1.93 BB/9 was the lowest of his career, and even though he didn't get a ton of strikeouts, his 3.08 K/BB was the best of his career.
A big part of that reduction in walks was that Garcia really concentrated on throwing first-pitch strikes. His 62.5 first-pitch strike percentage was his highest since that data began being collected in 2002.
Second, Garcia kept the ball down. His 44.7 ground ball percentage was the second-highest of his career (2005 was the highest at 48.8) and his 0.64 HR/9 was the second-lowest of his career (2001, 0.60 HR/9 with Seattle).
And third, Garcia identified what pitches were working and threw them a lot. Garcia threw his slider—which FanGraphs rated at 1.58 runs per 100 pitches (that's good)—29.2 percent of the time, easily the most of his career. He also threw his changeup (3.30 runs/100 pitches) and splitter (2.03 runs/100) 12.7 and 12.5 percent of the time.
Conversely, Garcia only threw his fastball 44.3 percent of the time—the lowest percentage of his career. Not surprisingly, FanGraphs rates Garcia's fastball at -0.85 runs/100.
Granted, all of these numbers came in just nine starts. But what Garcia showed in those nine starts was smart pitching. He's made a late-career adjustment, and so far, the early returns on it are pretty good.
Heading into next year, the biggest question for Garcia will be his health. If he manages to stay healthy for 20 starts, it's not much of a stretch to think he'll be a solid fifth starter over those starts. However, Garcia staying healthy is a big "if." Luckily, as I mentioned before, the Sox have Daniel Hudson waiting in the wings—so the risk in bringing Garcia back isn't very high.
Garcia's never going to be a 30-start, 200-inning horse like he was four years ago for the Sox. But what he very well could be is a very solid fifth starter for a playoff contender—like the White Sox in 2010.
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