The Chicago White Sox fan base is incredibly down on Leury Garcia. It makes sense why. He was not good in 2022 and hasn't really done anything in his career to earn him the title of "longest tenured White Sox player".
However, none of this is his fault. He didn't lead himself off, he didn't give himself a contract that is impossible to live up to, and he didn't put himself in the least likely position to succeed last year. That doesn't mean that fans have to love that he is on the team still.
It does sound like his role will be limited in 2023. The plan is for Romy Gonzalez to be the starting second baseman with Lenyn Sosa here and there. That means that Leury Garcia will mostly be a bench utility piece that replaces certain people all across the diamond when needed.
That is probably a good role for him as the 26th man on the everyday MLB roster. He might even thrive in that role. He absolutely needs to in order to justify his spot on the team. He needs to be a fine defender and be much less of an automatic out when he comes to bat.
Leury Garcia needs to play well or be gone from the Chicago White Sox.
If he does that, it will be fine to have him as the 26th man. If he doesn't, Rick Hahn needs to accept his losses and cut ties with him. That probably should have been done already but the organization hates admitting when they were wrong about something.
Tony La Russa was a mistake in every way and his usage of Leury Garcia is one of the biggest reasons why. He would get mad if anyone referred to Garcia as a utility player even though he is clearly that. He also isn't even that good of a utility player.
Well, as mentioned before, La Russa is no longer the manager of this baseball team so there is no excuse for Garcia to play as much as he did in 2022. Now that the team is taking a new direction, Garcia needs to play well in his new role or be gone.