Looking ahead to Freddy Garcia's 2010

Freddy Garcia pitched reasonably well in 2009, but can he do it again in 2010? (AP photo/Kathy Willens)

Before Freddy Garcia made his first start back with the White Sox in the middle of last August, nobody could have realistically expected him to be as solid as he turned out to be. Even if Garcia was able to stay healthy for the season's final month and a half, his upper-80's fastball and shaky offspeed stuff didn't inspire a whole lot of confidence.

Armed with that 88 mph fastball and a surprisingly good slider and changeup, Garcia pitched pretty well in his nine starts in 2009. He pitched better than his 4.34 ERA indicated, as his ability to keep the ball down (44.7 groundball percentage while only allowing four home runs) and limit walks (1.93 walks per nine innings, about one and a half walks below the league average) keyed his success.

But how repeatable is Garcia's success from 2009? On the surface, not very.

First of all, Garcia's health needs to be addressed. Nobody knows if he can even make nine starts again next year given his arm and shoulder problems the last few years.

Luckily for the White Sox, if Garcia does go down, there's a good chance Dan Hudson will be ready to step in and do a decent enough job as a fifth starter. Ideally, he could get some more time to develop his secondary pitches as a member of the Sox bullpen or Knights starting rotation, but if push comes to shove, he could fill in for an injured or ineffective Garcia.

Even if Garcia stays off the disabled list, it won't mean he's entirely healthy. Garcia can't afford to lose any more velocity on his fastball, and a dip into the mid-80s' would be tough for any righthander not named Greg Maddux to overcome.

So, with the possibility of an injury in mind, let's take a look at the three projections that are out for Garcia:

FIP=Fielding Independent Pitching, BABIP=Batting Average on Balls in Play, LOB%=Percentage of baserunners allowed that did not score

Out of these three, I would wager that CHONE's has the highest probability of being the closest to Garcia's actual season line. Garcia's 1.93 BB/9 was great last year, but it was a severe deviation from his career average of 2.87. It's also unlikely that he'll allow so few home runs in 2010, as he has allowed about a home run every nine innings over his career.

These projections are understandably pessimistic given a few of Garcia's numbers and his recent history of mediocre-to-poor pitching. Obviously, these are just projections—by no means are they guaranteed to be 100 percent accurate.

Garcia still has a chance to repeat his '09 success—it's as simple as him having good command on his fastball and secondary pitches while limiting his walks.

There's no telling what kind of adjustments opposing hitters will make against Garcia next year, either. He heavily relied on his slider (29.2 percent), changeup (12.7 percent), and splitter (12.5 percent) while only throwing his fastball 43.4 percent of the time. All of those secondary pitchers were rated as above average while his fastball was rated as below average.

And that's half of where Garcia's 2010 hinges. He can get away with a mediocre fastball so long as he has three other effective offspeed pitches—and if those pitches stay effective, there's a good chance Garcia will as well.

Garcia isn't going to get batters to chase those pitches out of the zone, either, so he has to throw them for strikes. He did a great job with that in 2009, especially his slider (which went for a strike three of every four times he threw it).

So, going even deeper, whether or not Garcia can consistently throw his offspeed and breaking pitches for good strikes will determine whether or not he's effective. He doesn't have much room for error, so not only does his control have to be good, but his command has to be good as well.

Obviously, Garcia's fastball is important to his success too, as he needs it to set up his slower stuff. If he can't locate his fastball, then his slider, changeup, and splitter lose a lot of their effectiveness.

Garcia can get away with a mediocre fastball, but he can't get away with a bad fastball. So the other half of Garcia's success will depend on whether his fastball is at least acceptable or not.

It's boom or bust for Garcia in 2010—if his fastball is decent but his slow stuff isn't, he's in trouble. Conversely, if his slow stuff is good but his fastball isn't there, he's in trouble. But if both halves are there, Garcia should be fine.

So, with all that in mind, here's what I think Garcia will do in 2010: He won't be as good as he was in 2009, but he won't be so bad that the team feels the need to replace a healthy Garcia with Hudson. His BB/9 and HR/9 likely will rise, but his BABIP (which was 10 points higher than his career average in '09) won't.

If Garcia makes 15 starts, I expect him to be bad in six of them (~four to five innings and five+ runs allowed), decent in seven of them (~six innings, four runs), and good in two of them (~six+ innings, less than four runs). Basically, that very rough estimate comes down to Garcia being reliable in about three of every five starts he makes.

Depending on your standards, that's either good or bad. In a weaker rotation, a fifth starter who struggles in 40 percent of his starts is a detriment. But, on paper, the White Sox don't exactly have a weak rotation. As long as Garcia isn't a liability, he won't hurt the overall success of the White Sox' pitching.

So when push comes to shove, Garcia won't be close the biggest problem the 2010 White Sox have.

Links:

• Jim talks Teahen at Sox Machine. The money quote: "When a player looks like he can do a little of everything, he may not be able to do anything at all."
• Larry pases along a few minor league notes at South Side Sox.
• Jeff Zimmerman of Beyond the Box Score passes along four positive notes regarding this year's Hall of Fame balloting.