He's a career .250/.296/.476 hitter, 110 OPS+. Not impressive numbers for a DH-only guy. We need him to take more walks, or be capable of playing the field, whether it be catcher or 1B. The team seems to have no interest in him catching again, and the fact that we haven't seen him at 1B makes me wonder if the team sees him as incapable there as well.
From what I remember, his career #'s in ATL were markedly split by a great 1st half and crappy 2nd half. The thought was that catching took his legs out and killed his bat. If we take his career 1st half splits/OPS+ and say "maybe can he do this over a whole season as a DH", then he definitely plays as a DH-only guy. I'm giving him another year to do something more like that.
Which is why I said we would have to pay the contract, which we have to do anyway if he sucks and we don't keep him He is still young enough to make it which is the hope
Main reason they didn't want Gattis catching was his history of lower extremity injuries He wasn't good last year but still had 28 HR and led us in rbi He needs to be better, but it's likely that he is
Yeah, it was pretty obvious he had changed his approach. I know the running joke in the game threads became that you could always expect a Gattis ground-out to the left side... but if that was truly the case, that also means that he's not striking out as much either. At his salary, still is worthy production. Won't be one of the upper echelon DH's in the league, but also won't be paid like one either.
Hope your right. Unless he has Springer like numbers, it will be hard not to give Reed a go when he is ready. I am tempted to say that Singleton is toast no matter what he does unless Reed goes into a tailspin this upcoming year.
If Singleton is hitting the Astros will find AB's for him. I agree that Reed is coming up fairly soon, one way or the other, but they won't just dump Singleton. They could always give him some AB's at DH. Gattis has done nothing to be entrenched there. If Singleton and Gattis are both hitting than you platoon them with Reed. 3 for 2 spots. If all of them are hitting, well frankly the idea of that problem makes my d**k hard.
Don't sleep on Tyler White to take at bats from Gatis, Singleton and Reed (who I think begins the year in AAA). White makes very strong contact and can work the count at an elite rate. He also can play 1st adequately well.
Could just as easily say Singleton has done nothing to show that he deserves a spot on the MLB roster (or 40 man roster)... other than signing a contract that made it so. He didn't even hit well in the minors last year. I don't think they'll just dump him... but much like Villar, this is likely his last chance with this team. What's problematic is that apparently his work ethic is just as questionable as his MLB career thus far (and I don't know how much the contract is to blame for this). Gattis is the only one who's actually hit against MLB pitching... until one of these young guys shows something at the MLB level (Singleton included), he still has a high enough floor (at a mostly affordable rate) to warrant AB's.
Really feels like it needs to be White/Reed/Gattis/Tucker manning DH/1st/very occasional LF (for Gattis and Tucker) by mid May. Crossing my fingers that Singleton can show something in ST and April and we can ship him out for something of value.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Astros?src=hash">#Astros</a> have claimed RHP Danny Reynolds off waivers from the Dodgers. Following the move, the Astros 40-man roster now stands at 38.</p>— Houston Astros (@astros) <a href="https://twitter.com/astros/status/679775998171295744">December 23, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> Spoiler <script type="text/javascript" src="http://widgets.sports-reference.com/wg.fcgi?css=1&site=br&url=%2Fregister%2Fplayer.cgi%3Fid%3Dreynol002dan&div=div_standard_pitching"></script>
Those numbers are very meh, but at the same time, it looks like he's had some pretty solid ratios earlier in his career. Maybe he can recapture some of that as a middle reliever.
Are we looking at the same numbers? I see a guy who had mediocre numbers early in his career as a starter whose K/9 ratio bumped significantly at higher levels when he was exclusively in relief. According to this Eyewitness Report at Baseball Prospectus he's got a plus-plus velocity on his fastball with a fringy slider. Sounds like the standard plus heat/ minus command middle reliever prospect. Maybe a little more put together than a Jandel Gustave or Reymin Guduan.
He's talking K/BB. His K% went up, but his BB% is much higher than it was in first 2 years of pro ball.
Work ethic is not a problem for Singleton, at least when it comes to the cage or work on his swing with coaches. He had effort issues when he was an addict.
He could have been in better shape coming into last season.... but you're right, he just may not be any good despite how hard he works.
Agree with this... let the cream rise to the top. There has been reports of Tucker being dealt, but he is under team control for years and is a personal favorite of the GM. Some of these guys will fail but suspect the Astros let them weed themselves out.
I know its human nature... but I hope the super-computers and analytics don't reward "playing favorites" as a reason to keep one player over another.
Wrong sport, but in the immortal words of JVG, "my type of player is LeBron James." So there may be something to that.
