Steve Stein wonders, Why oh why haven’t I posted this 2014 Leury Garcia card yet? Fair question. It’s pretty awful. Even for a White Sox hitter. (I kid).
Garcia had plenty of chances to prove himself with 145 at-bats but could only muster a .166 batting average with one homer. He did steal 11 bases but he had ample opportunity with 17 pinch running appearances. Six GIDP probably didn’t help his cause either.
| G | GS | PA | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | BB | SO | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 73 | 32 | 155 | 145 | 13 | 24 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 11 | 5 | 48 | .166 | .192 | .207 |
If this card wasn’t so bad, it might qualify for a Weird Card. Look at all the asterisks! I count 26 with 25 in the second column.
But yes, look that 55-40. Ugh. Leury can only manage an 11-8 and it goes downhill from there with two 8s and two 9s. With his 11 steals, APBA was forced to give him an 11 and a 10. If they gave him any more speed numbers, his card would hit too well. As such, it should hit around .175.
Ugly numbers: 11-8, 55-40, 31-13
If this card wasn’t bad enough, Garcia has four 24s to make matters worse.
Now Steve Stein has an interest in all this. Garcia was going to start a fair amount games for his Transcontinental Baseball League team until he made a last minute deal. Crisis averted!
The coda to all this is:
TBL is a usage-controlled league. The only exceptions to this are players who are so bad they are have no redeeming values, who are considered “innocuous” and can be used a lot more than they were in real life.
Innocuous players must
– have fewer than 3 full power numbers
– not have the equivalent of a first column 1
– not rated fielding ‘1’ at any position
– not have a batting shift of +6 or greater
– not have an arm better than 32 if they are rated in the OF.
Leury has a 33 arm, so NOT INNOCUOUS!
(He is, however, a REALLY GOOD pinch runner!)
Oh, also innocuous players must have a BA < .240 and OBP < .340
I always knew that Gordon Beckham was innocuous. But now it’s official.