They have one more year of team control over Gattis as compared to Carter, so all things being equal regarding baseball ability, Luhnow will put more value on Gattis. On the same token, Gattis would command more trade value because of the extra year of team control. I doubt either would command a whole lot right now, I'm betting Luhnow would love to flip one of them and give Singleton those at bats.
Well they are very similar. Gattis has a horrible OBP of .272 and Carter's OBP is .311. Gattis's OPS is only slightly higher than Carter's at .726 compared to .711 for Carter. However, neither Gattis or Valbuena are close to Carter's awful 110 SO's.
Gattis seems to be a better situational hitter. At least to my naked eye. Maybe advanced statistics would say otherwise, but I can't recall too many base hits, other than HRs, where CC knocks in a guy or two.
That's probably because Carter is hitting behind guys with sub-.300 OB%s. It's kind of hard to knock in runners if no one's on base.
The only thing Carter has going for him at this point is a decent OBP. But its just an illusion, a walk isn't good when you have a runner on second with two outs with Valbuena and Singleton next in the order. The situation boils down to two simple facts: Carter's skills are all ready made redundant by 3-4 others on the team, and he STRUGGLES to put the ball in play. To be an effective MLB he has to be able to play at a respectable level for the entire season. Carter shouldn't get a pass now because he went on a hot streak for 3 months in the past. This is Clutch Fan's we should all remember Jeremy Lin.
The Chris Carter Perception Issue, exhibit A: I think the later is viable; the later, however... Carter's skill (singular) is hitting the ball really far fairly often: it's hard to label that redundant. You can't have too many power hitters. I do agree Carter/Gattis/Valbuena are very similiar offensively and would seem to create a potential black hole but... the offense doesn't seem to be affected by it. They chug right along, hanging 12 on Boston, 11 on Cleveland... (Do I think they'll be exposed in a short series against elite pitching? Yes. But I know absolutely nothing...)
Carters advanced analytical stats are off the charts. I mean, just look at his total BiP^gO numbers. He has an astonishing 1.265 pKoG value…1.265!! Then you look at his Quadrilateral Coefficient Percentage you’ll see it is 45.8%. Who have you ever seen have a QCP of 45.8? And then if you add 2+2 you get 4. There’s no arguing that 2+2 equals 4. Dogs are smarter than cats. As you can see, we are truly seeing greatness. Greatness we haven’t seen since Johnnie “High-Sox” McGee from the 1920’s and we all know how incredible "High-Sox" was.
I LOL'd... But you should have stopped after the first paragraph. I guarantee you people would have went to look up those stats.
On having a lot of Carter types in lineup, I've seen before the value of those types aren't affected much by other batters in lineup. On base guys are more valuable with lineup stacked with on base guys and less valuable on lineups like Houston's.
What most people don't understand, is that part of what makes this team work is the fact that there ARE several similar offensive power bats. The kind of bats that are not consistent, but are powerful. Since there are several of them, you don't need them all "hot" at the same time. As long as you get one of them going at a time, you are going to score runs. Gattis, Carter, Valbuena, Rasmus all have plenty of issues offensively, but if you look at the aggregate of what they have done, it's very productive. And that is without any of them (maybe Rasmus) having done what most thought they would. This offense works, it's just so different from what people are used to that most are expecting it to fall apart any minute now. Of course, most have been expecting that for quite some time now
"works" is questionable due to current injury concerns to their best overall offensive player not named Correa. "could be better" with a replacement player for Carter is also something that could/should/will be considered if he doesn't start improving towards his career means... if they trust or believe in that replacement player in the lineup (whether it be Lowrie, regardless of which position he plays.... or Singleton).
I know we are beating it into the ground, but all of this Carter/Gattis talk has made me want to dive a little more into the numbers. Gattis: Season Spoiler Post slump (April 24): Spoiler RISP vs No one on: Spoiler Carter: Season: Spoiler Post Slump (April 21): Spoiler RISP vs No one on: Spoiler First, let it be known that Gattis has done some pretty remarkable things since April 24th. No matter who he is being compared to, I believe he leads the league in RBIs over that time. Granted, that is not a repeatable stat, but it is what has helped propel this offense to the best record in the AL. That being stated, Carter is going to fall short in most situations where you are comparing "clutch stats". The first thing that immediately popped out to me was the difference in BAbip. Carter is sitting 20 points below Gattis in both their good stretches and whole season stats. Carter's .273 BAbip over his decent streak is actually just 6 points above his career year's .267 in 2014. With that, I think it is safe to say that Carter is doing just about what he should be over his good streak. Over the season, Carter's BAbip with RISP is sitting at .308 which means he has actually been luckier than he should be in RISP situation. For comparison's sake, Gattis is sitting .283 with RISP which is just 9 points above where he is for the season. Though the sample sizes are small, Carter in 9 less plate appearances has been luckier than Gattis but produced 13 fewer RBI. Part of the RBI differential is no doubt because of home runs. 9 of Carter's 15 bombs have been solo shots and only 6 of Evan's 14 have been of the solo variety. The main reason I wanted to put the numbers side by side, though, is to compare numbers with RISP. Gattis is striking out at a 30% clip with RISP with Carter sitting at 32%. Not too much of a difference, but one that is constantly brought up. But, the reason I think we notice the strikeouts from Carter the most is not in the numbers above but below: Carter Spoiler Gattis Spoiler With a runner on third with less than two outs, Carter has had 33 PA's. In these situations, we are looking for one thing: bone in ribeyes. Carter has walked 5 times and struck out 8 times in this situation. Boom. 13 opportunities gone to drive in a run by not swinging a bat. From 33 to 20 PA's to make a difference now. Sure, a walk doesn't hurt, but it doesn't drive in the run. His 24% K percentage is lower than his season average, but he should be getting favorable pitches to hit since the pitcher is working from the stretch and dealing with runners on base. Carter has 4 SF in the situation but only 2 XBH. Gattis has had 27 such PAs and walked once while striking out 3 times. An 11% whiff percentage is notably lower than his season average and makes you feel like you have a better chance for him to convert the run. The other number that sticks out is the .409 BAbip which is unsustainable. Sure, it may not keep up, but it has helped Gattis produce more runs with runners on third with less than two outs than Carter has in 6 less appearances. Gattis also has 6 XBH in these situations as well. TL;DR - I think Gattis looks and performs better in higher leverage situations. Carter isn't having a "bad year" but rather isn't the player that we may think that he is. It is unfair to assume he will go on another run like he did last year. Gattis has had some luck with runners on third, but seems to be playing as his normal self otherwise. Moving forward, I think the team knows that Gattis is the clean up man that makes the most sense for this roster. Carter would be a serviceable clean up man, but there are no at bats to be had in that spot. That being said, I think his services would be better for a team that needs a 4 hole hitter. /rant /boredom
Incredibly small sample size, but... so far, so good. They had the one hiccup Saturday in Boston; otherwise, they keep chugging along. I keep thinking this aspect is going to catch up to them, or that aspect... I guess I'll eventually be right - but they've survived Altuve being hurt/injured; Springer missing some time; they've had Rasmus out.......... They seem to be this inexplicably unstoppable force. Carter ('13-'14): .225/.314/.471/.785 Carter ('15, minus first 14 Gs): .213/.330/.457/.786 (68 Gs) I mean... do you think they're disappointed in Carter? And I'm sincerely asking because I have no earthly idea... I'd wager they'd like his slugging % to be higher; but I doubt they're complaining about a fairly good OB%...
No. I don't think they are disappointed. I just think that they have a 4 hole hitter hitting 6th and it doesn't make as much sense for his skill set. I think they are probably happy with his decent production, but it would be better if he had more situations where guys were on base.
This is their seasons in a nutshell, IMO; hitting 3/4, with some combination of Altuve/Springer and then Altuve/Springer/Correa ahead of him, has simply given Gattis more opportunities. Carter shouldn't be tagged for drawing a walk; he's been consistently hitting 6th in this line-up and opponents likely respect his power. It's possible he's being pitched carefully/around, especially considering he normally has guys like Castro, Marishnick, Gonzalez hitting after him. I really think Gattis > Carter boild down to opportunity. Valbuena and Gattis have been terrible at getting on base and routinely hitting ahead of Carter.
Agreed on most accounts. I do not think that Carter should be tagged for drawing a walk, but a walk has diminishing returns compared to other situations in that particular situation. That goes back into my "4 hole shouldn't hit 6 hole" idea. He just cannot get the best value out of that spot. And I think Gattis is a better hitter. His consistency edges out Carter for me, but I can see it being argued either way. Once again, you are right, though. Their spot in the batting order has a lot to do with success on paper, and Gattis is most likely going to keep getting those at bats. I just wonder if the Astros can convince another team that Carter is the 4 man they are looking for.
I think the question with Carter is whether there is a synergy in the team in how all these hitters are working together. As a team, the Astros are: #24 in Batting Average (12 in AL) #20 on On-Base % (10) #4 in Slugging % (3) #6 in OPS (4) and ... #2 in MLB in runs, only behind the ridiculous Bluejays. So the question that first needs to be answered (and it may not be possible without more data) is whether this is just a lucky fluke, or if there's a method to the madness - that when you combine a bunch of these types of weird hitters, the output is better than the sum of the inputs. If it's luck, then the goal should simply be to get better hitters where possible and Carter can be looked at in a vacuum. But if there is a specific synergy going on, getting a slightly better but different type of hitter may actually be a net negative to the offense if they end up performing more like their stats suggest they should.
While I agree that may be the feeling on Carter in the offseason, there is more to it in the middle of the season. Overall this season, Carter has not been good. There is no arguing that, the question is how long do you wait for his numbers to start trending towards his career average. If you are like me, you think Carter is likely to be very good in the second half, so you may very well be dumping a guy that's gonna post an .850 OPS over the second half. If you are like Nick, you may believe that he has sucked thus far, and will likely continue to suck, and you shouldn't automatically expect him to trend towards his career numbers. Whatever you do with him is a gamble, but I personally believe leaning on his track record is the safer bet than gambling on a rookie. Lowrie's return could change the discussion depending on how things are going at that point.
