Leury García made his White Sox debut by pinch-hitting for Avisaíl García on Aug. 23, 2013. Every other player occupying every other spot in the White Sox lineup is out of baseball, at least stateside. That qualifier is necessary because Dayan Viciedo is still Big in Japan.
He's the longest-tenured White Sox by about half a year, with José Abreu joining the fray the following year. He's a strange candidate to hold that title, as he's never posted an above-average season at any point over his MLB career. He pieced together an end-around by bouncing between Charlotte and Chicago for a few years, which slowed his accrual of service time. Smash-cut to the present day, where García is in the back half of a two-year extension that capped his last arb-year's earnings. Over the course of that time, he expanded his defensive repertoire to every position besides first base and catcher (Abreu's venerability means there's never been a need for García at the former position).
García inadvertently and intentionally learned from Yolmer Sánchez's experience. Sánchez stuck quicker, which put him in Super Two territory. Then he went year-to-year in arbitration and couldn't keep up with his salary trajectory, leading the White Sox to non-tender him. He's bounced around four organizations since, spending his age-29 year with the Triple-A Gwinnett Braves, even though he's a better bet to hold down one position for a team than García. In fact, he might've been better served professionally by playing some outfield, rather than holding down third base one year and second base the next. He still has yet to surface in a major-league game for a team besides the White Sox.
García has always been an OK Plan B and an excellent Plan C, which is why he's been able to hang around for so long. But now that he's Plan A at second base, he risks running headlong into the other weird thing about his career -- his regular and symmetrical orbit around 1 WAR.
Since he discovered his modern form, García has basically rounded to 1-WAR status regardless of where or how much he's played. In 2019, he accumulated 1 WAR during the first half by hitting .293/.327/.395 as a competent everyday center fielder ... then he hit .262/.288/.357 and contributed only 0.2 WAR despite 282 plate appearances. In 2020, he homered from both sides of the plate in his second game of the season and slugged .441 while filling in for Tim Anderson at shortstop before a thumb injury ended his regular-season after 16 games.
Just as García is unusually enduring, this personal history makes García unusually fascinating at this moment. Just like 2019, García was pressed into regular duty, this time at second base after Nick Madrigal underwent season-ending surgery on his hamstring. Just like 2019, García overcame an abysmal start to attain "cromulent regular" status by the end of the first half, reaching .263/.330/.369, good for 1.2 WAR.
And just like 2019, he's off to a rocky start to his second half here in 2021. He's 1-for-18 at the plate, although he's reached on three walks, two HBPs and one error. He committed a pair of misplays at second base in the first game of the Houston series. He was thrown out at second base on an ill-advised attempt to tag up in the last game of the Houston series.
I'm not saying that the Baseball Gods have subjugated García to a Sisyphean struggle beyond 1 WAR no matter how he tries to cheat it, but this is exactly what it would look like if he were. Should this season play out like the others, then the White Sox are staring at replacement-level second basemen for the remainder of the 2021 calendar.
That might be fine. The White Sox have a nine-game lead, which gives Eloy Jiménez, Luis Robert and Yasmani Grandal plenty of runway for liftoff whenever they return from their injuries, assuming no major setbacks. If they can plug the White Sox's issues at DH, outfield and catcher well enough, then the Sox can live with glove-first guys at the pivot and the bottom of the order, whether it's García or Danny Mendick.
One could also argue that addressing the most pressing position makes the White Sox less reliant on players who suffered significant injuries. Adam Frazier is the most obvious fit, but he's that guy for a lot of teams. I wonder if Rick Hahn has the chutzpah to call Cleveland about Cesar Hernandez, whose expiring contract doesn't do much to help a team that is now just one game over .500 with a 3 percent shot of making the postseason.
Until the White Sox have somebody better at second, this is something to watch. Finding something to monitor for players who aren't appointment viewing is one skill we've all learned during the rebuild out of necessity, when the White Sox sold at the deadline instead of buying. Now that the Sox are justified in adding, it'd be kinda cool if Hahn did what he could to give this muscle the rest of the year off.
