Time to extend Gattis

Gattis discovered the secrets of immortality in his travels. Not sure why this is even a concern.
 
This is from DOB's blog today regarding Gattis:

He recently made some changes designed to get him standing up a little straighter and eliminate some “side-to-side” movement in his swing, as he puts it.

“Not only mechanically, physically being tall at the plate, but approach-wise,” Walker said of the adjustments. “The other day against a lefty he hit a changeup, he hit two sliders. And that’s kind of been his weakness, off-speed stuff. But with his new approach – and I don’t want to talk about it much – his thought process has made him cover more off-speed pitches.
 
thethe said:
This is from DOB's blog today regarding Gattis:

He recently made some changes designed to get him standing up a little straighter and eliminate some “side-to-side” movement in his swing, as he puts it.

“Not only mechanically, physically being tall at the plate, but approach-wise,” Walker said of the adjustments. “The other day against a lefty he hit a changeup, he hit two sliders. And that’s kind of been his weakness, off-speed stuff. But with his new approach – and I don’t want to talk about it much – his thought process has made him cover more off-speed pitches.
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Great, so that means he goes into a slump for the next 2.5 years or so?
 
gilesfan said:
I'm not seeing a .900 OPS guy unless he can slug well over .600.

Nelson Cruz

David Ortiz

Victor Martinez

Adam Dunn

Chris Carter

Brandon Moss
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Ridiculous. That would, of course, assume he would have an OBP of less than .300. That won't happen. If you're paying attention, he's taking a lot of pitches he was getting out on. He's walking more. You're stuck on his transition time to MLB, when he was figuring it out. He may not be a .370-.380 guy, but I'd be comfortable projecting .340-.350.

He's a thinker. He figures things out, gets better.

The man's a stud, flat out. I expect .850 for the next half decade, and .900 is not out of the question.
 
GovClintonTyree said:
Ridiculous. That would, of course, assume he would have an OBP of less than .300. That won't happen. If you're paying attention, he's taking a lot of pitches he was getting out on. He's walking more. You're stuck on his transition time to MLB, when he was figuring it out. He may not be a .370-.380 guy, but I'd be comfortable projecting .340-.350.

He's a thinker. He figures things out, gets better.

The man's a stud, flat out. I expect .850 for the next half decade, and .900 is not out of the question.
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Now, you convinced me. Forget the data, Gattis is a thinker.
 
I wouldn't extend him. I still have questions about his durability. He was banged up quite a bit in the minors and he seems to get nicked a lot (I understand that happens to catchers). He wore down terribly last year and while some of his performance problems last year were injury-related, the jury is out for me on his long term outlook.

Don't get me wrong. I think he's a key cog for us at the moment. I hope Bethancourt's bat gets to where it needs to be so that he and Gattis can be a decent tag-team behind the plate. I still see Gattis being most effective as a 350 to 400 AB guy, but I could be wrong. He was horrible at 1B last season in his brief appearances there, but I thought he did alright in LF. He's no gazelle, but for a guy with no experience in the OF (probably ever), he looked like he knew what he was doing (I know I'm overlooking that horrible diving catch attempt in the playoffs).
 
50PoundHead said:
I wouldn't extend him. I still have questions about his durability. He was banged up quite a bit in the minors and he seems to get nicked a lot (I understand that happens to catchers). He wore down terribly last year and while some of his performance problems last year were injury-related, the jury is out for me on his long term outlook.

Don't get me wrong. I think he's a key cog for us at the moment. I hope Bethancourt's bat gets to where it needs to be so that he and Gattis can be a decent tag-team behind the plate. I still see Gattis being most effective as a 350 to 400 AB guy, but I could be wrong. He was horrible at 1B last season in his brief appearances there, but I thought he did alright in LF. He's no gazelle, but for a guy with no experience in the OF (probably ever), he looked like he knew what he was doing (I know I'm overlooking that horrible diving catch attempt in the playoffs).
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Fiddy, I love Gattis, but I generally agree with you. Fast Fredi said he was approaching his most games caught in a season earlier this week at 52. On one hand, his legs at 27 should be fresher than, say, Mac's at 27. On the other hand, you don't know how he'll hold up.

As suspect as Fredi's handling of the pitching staff is, he's been quite deft with his catchers. If we get 30-some homers in 110 games from Oso and his defense and play falls off beyond that, let's be happy with what we've got. And let's get more data on how durable he is before we extend him. There's no rush.
 
50PoundHead said:
I wouldn't extend him. I still have questions about his durability. He was banged up quite a bit in the minors and he seems to get nicked a lot (I understand that happens to catchers). He wore down terribly last year and while some of his performance problems last year were injury-related, the jury is out for me on his long term outlook.

Don't get me wrong. I think he's a key cog for us at the moment. I hope Bethancourt's bat gets to where it needs to be so that he and Gattis can be a decent tag-team behind the plate. I still see Gattis being most effective as a 350 to 400 AB guy, but I could be wrong. He was horrible at 1B last season in his brief appearances there, but I thought he did alright in LF. He's no gazelle, but for a guy with no experience in the OF (probably ever), he looked like he knew what he was doing (I know I'm overlooking that horrible diving catch attempt in the playoffs).
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you're trying to convince yourself that he can play LF but you saw what happened when he did (bad).

The whole idea "extend Gattis; we're getting the DH" is flawed. And without the DH there's no where to put him for 162 games.
 
GovClintonTyree said:
Be a slave to your data, because past performance is a guarantee of future results.
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Data is all we have to go on. Hunches and guts are fine and dandy, but they don't produce results. Data that tracks what a player does is important.

Of our 7 regularly starters. Gattis swings at the second most pitches out of the zone after BABIP, the second least balls in the zone after Heyward, which leads to the second highest swing rate on the team, and most of the stuff that's hittable he's not swinging at. That's not a good trend for taking a lot of pitches he was getting out on as that largely implies he's taking more pitches. Maybe he's recognized he hits some pitches better than others so lays off. Maybe he's pickin up pitches better. I'm unsure. I do know that he still hasn't mustered a 6% BB% yet, and since 2000, the 27 hitters who qualified with a .900+ OPS year in and year out only 4 had/have a BB% under 10% and none under 8. If you alter your expectation to .850 you have a better shot as you're massively expanding your base to 71 players and and 16 of them had a BB% under 10% and 5 were between 6% and 8% That being said, those 5 were Nomar who K'd 9% of the time Aramis Ramirez who's K'd 13.3% of the time, Robinson Cano who's K'd 11.9% of the time, Juan Gonzalez who's Gattis's best comp and played in a way more offensive friendly era and was a juicer, and Cargo who plays in Coors.

I wouldn't bet on Gattis being consistently a .850 OPS guy. I think he'll post seasons that strong but I think there are 2 important factors that you're missing with that guesstimate. First is that generally the best hitters in baseball walk much mroe than Gattis and K less. So until Gattis shows a significant improvement in one or the other he's not gonna be one of the best hitters in baseball, and since the new pitching era we've been in lately, only 23 players have an average OPS over .850, and I don't think Gattis is a superior hitter to Justin Upton, Carlos Beltran, or Carlos QUentin who haven't been over .850 average since the new pitching trends started. Maybe he proves me wrong, but I'm not betting on it.
 
I LOVE Gattis and think he's still got a ways to go before he peaks. He's still learning his position and making the adjustment to major league pitching but extending him now is unnecessary. He's ours for 4 more years at least. Plenty of time to judge his long term value and how much he wants to or is able to continue catching after 32.
 
zitothebrave said:
Data is all we have to go on. Hunches and guts are fine and dandy, but they don't produce results. Data that tracks what a player does is important.

Of our 7 regularly starters. Gattis swings at the second most pitches out of the zone after BABIP, the second least balls in the zone after Heyward, which leads to the second highest swing rate on the team, and most of the stuff that's hittable he's not swinging at. That's not a good trend for taking a lot of pitches he was getting out on as that largely implies he's taking more pitches. Maybe he's recognized he hits some pitches better than others so lays off. Maybe he's pickin up pitches better. I'm unsure. I do know that he still hasn't mustered a 6% BB% yet, and since 2000, the 27 hitters who qualified with a .900+ OPS year in and year out only 4 had/have a BB% under 10% and none under 8. If you alter your expectation to .850 you have a better shot as you're massively expanding your base to 71 players and and 16 of them had a BB% under 10% and 5 were between 6% and 8% That being said, those 5 were Nomar who K'd 9% of the time Aramis Ramirez who's K'd 13.3% of the time, Robinson Cano who's K'd 11.9% of the time, Juan Gonzalez who's Gattis's best comp and played in a way more offensive friendly era and was a juicer, and Cargo who plays in Coors.

I wouldn't bet on Gattis being consistently a .850 OPS guy. I think he'll post seasons that strong but I think there are 2 important factors that you're missing with that guesstimate. First is that generally the best hitters in baseball walk much mroe than Gattis and K less. So until Gattis shows a significant improvement in one or the other he's not gonna be one of the best hitters in baseball, and since the new pitching era we've been in lately, only 23 players have an average OPS over .850, and I don't think Gattis is a superior hitter to Justin Upton, Carlos Beltran, or Carlos QUentin who haven't been over .850 average since the new pitching trends started. Maybe he proves me wrong, but I'm not betting on it.
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I agree with that. The problem with talking about Gattis right now, is you are projecting numbers to his numbers right now, which are part of a major hot streak for him. .850 would be very impressive for Gattis and I think there is a good chance he has a couple seasons that high.
 
thethe said:
Do you guys not believe that Gattis can improve his pitch recognition?
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He can, but it won't be easy. The list of players in the majors who've significantly improved their patience is somewhere between slim and none. Sure there are peaks and valleys and what not but usually. I don't feel like running a massive study.
 
zitothebrave said:
He can, but it won't be easy. The list of players in the majors who've significantly improved their patience is somewhere between slim and none. Sure there are peaks and valleys and what not but usually. I don't feel like running a massive study.
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But again, Gattis is a unique case that could be seen as an outlier. He had very limited professional experience. There is no way that the past can accurately predict whta Gattis will do in the future. The way a 24 year old improved or didn't improve his pitch recognition after 6-8 years of professional experience tells us little about if Gattis can do the same.
 
thethe said:
But again, Gattis is a unique case that could be seen as an outlier. He had very limited professional experience. There is no way that the past can accurately predict whta Gattis will do in the future. The way a 24 year old improved or didn't improve his pitch recognition after 6-8 years of professional experience tells us little about if Gattis can do the same.
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But I could use that same argument to state he could get even worse. We know general trends in professional athletes as far as physical and mental growth. I think you can make a strong case that Gattis is mentally way far behind and that could be long term detrimental to his development.

I'm not gonna make that case. I'm gonna make a case on what I've seen which is a guy who swings a t a lot of bad pitches and he hasn't changed that from when I've seen it.
 
There are so few comparables that it is difficult to project Gattis' arc of development. Given the missed time, do you view him as physically younger than his age. Do those lost years mean that he will never be able to make up for the lost development or does it mean he has more potential for growth than a player his age. One thing that impresses me is that he seems to be one of those guys with a real desire to learn and improve. That's going to stand him in good stead, and makes me one of the more optimistic people around here in terms of his upside.

The comparables btw in terms of guys who missed key developmental years are Ron Leflore and Hamilton.
 
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