White Sox agree to terms with Brett Lawrie, Avisail Garcia

Brett Lawrie

The White Sox on Friday announced that they have agreed to contract terms with second baseman Brett Lawrie and outfielder Avisail Garcia.

Lawrie is back on a one-year contract worth $3.5 million, while Garcia received a one-year deal worth $3 million.

Both of these signings caused consternation among Sox fans, many of whom assumed both Lawrie and Garcia would be non-tendered. For me, it's a mixed bag. I'm OK with bringing back Lawrie, but I was ready to give up on Garcia.

Lawrie, 26, hit .248 with 12 home runs, 22 doubles and 36 RBIs in 94 games with the Sox in 2016. He did not play after July 21 because of some sort of hamstring/quad/knee injury that nobody ever seemed to fully explain.

That's the main gripe I have with Lawrie: He's always hurt. He's still a young man, but he's only played more than 100 games once in the past three seasons. And, only once has he played more than 125 games in a season during his five years in the bigs.

There's always something going on injury-wise with Lawrie. You just can't count on him. That said, $3.5 million isn't a lot of money in today's baseball, and at least Lawrie is good enough to be an everyday player when he is healthy.

The same cannot be said for Garcia, who qualifies as a perennial disappointment. The 25-year-old hit .245 with 12 home runs and 51 RBIs in 120 games for the Sox in 2016. Garcia also has battled injuries, but now that he has 1,551 MLB plate appearances under his belt, it seems foolish to think he is ever going to break out the way the Sox and their fans hoped when he was first acquired in 2013.

Garcia is a poor defensive outfielder -- so poor, in fact, that he started more games at designated hitter (61) than he did in the outfield (51) last season. He's also a poor base runner, so to justify his place on the roster, Garcia needs to hit.

But he never has hit, as evidenced by his lifetime .695 OPS. The Sox have already said "maybe next year" with regard to Garcia three times. At some point, you just have to admit that it isn't working out and move on.

For some reason, the Sox are sticking with Garcia one more time. At least with Lawrie, there is some versatility there. As it stands today, he is the Sox's second baseman. But if the team decides to rebuild, Todd Frazier could be traded for younger players, and Lawrie could be a one-year stopgap at third base.

Garcia is a stopgap for nothing, and it's hard to see what purpose he has.