Except the 2017 Astros. The entire story of the Astros' success has been about not just doing what everyone else has done just because that's how it's always been done.
They had Gattis last year. They decided that Gattis would not cut the proverbial mustard as an even tolerable catcher. Thus, we have Stassi, and he is really good behind the plate. McCann is great too.
Look at standings and know they are okay until deadline if they stay healthy. Sip some coffee. In about a month or so, call up Tucker and/or maybe Alvarez (still a while until then so who is expected to go down, gets DFA may change a lot). A little while after that, call up Whitley if there is any room to put him. Get to deadline, make a trade if there is a need or a bargain. Wait until September and then call up a bunch of guys. Health willing, they will be in the playoffs, and minutiae that was over-examined in the regular season gets magnified even more. I don't expect Gattis to be an Astro on August 1 except if McCann or Stassi get hurt...or Gattis is on the DL.
Yeah, I don't get the hate for Stassi. He's been playing well lately. He's getting a year long audition to see if he can take over as starter next year in the very likely event that McCann departs. He'd be the most affordable, logical replacement -- so he's not going anywhere. I'd like to see him get more games, not less. Now Gattis on the other hand . . . I'm not sure what can turn that trainwreck around. Can't remember if he's out of options. If he is, I fully expect that he'll have a back injury and will spend some time on the DL the next couple weeks, a la Tony Sipp. Would be nice if he could go back down to AAA and get his confidence back. I know there's the stats that show that he hits better when he catches, but he really is not a good catcher. Those starts really need to go to Stassi so we can see what we have when McCann departs.
In my way of thinking, playing catcher gives you a little more latitude on the offensive end. Lots of teams dont get ML average offensive production from that spot. So last year, his offense was decent enough for the position he played. But as many are saying, he wasn't such a good catcher. So DH seemed logical enough. But he cant hit the ball as a DH apparently. Following this reasoning, I cant see many places for him to go other than waivers unless he can have a good May and squelch the doubters for a while.
i don't get this line of argument. They also had Gattis the previous year and then decided he'd be better as their backup catcher who also could serve as a DH ... and had their best season ever, in part due to the offense from the 7-9 hitters, meaning they didn't have an offensive hole on the 30-40% of the games the backup catcher plays. Again, the Astros have gotten where they are by making unique forward-thinking decisions. "That's the way it's always been" is the worst argument to make for the Astros to do something. I'm not saying it will work this year. I'm not saying Gattis will hit this year. I'm saying it's silly to keep running him out as the DH when we know he has sucked in that role, and even if he didn't, he'd be just an OK DH. His primary value to this team is if he can be an offensive catcher. If he can't do that or the Astros don't want that, that's fine - but then he needs to go. I have no idea. I would suggest trying Gattis at C for while and see what happens. If it doesn't work, dump him - no real harm done unless you think it's going to cost the Astros a meaningful game or two that affects home field or playoff seeding. They need to figure out how to fix the 7-9 issues in their order, and that's your quickest attempt at a solution without a roster move. I would also jettison Fisher for a bit and bring up any other player that they can try at LF or DH.
Astros know Gattis is a subpar catcher, and his offense doesn't make up for it unless there are just worst internal options. Playing him at catcher means not playing a better overall catcher that is on roster, currently. Playing a worse catcher because he sucks at DH is not what a forward thinking team does. Edit: Stassi likely can't hit as well as he has, but defense will keep at least as a backup. Gattis for his career has been a better DH than what Astros had last year. They were likely expecting Gattis to be a below average, but playable DH. He may still be that. Looking internally, there is not a sure-fire better DH that Astros want to bring up at the moment. Forward thinking teams rarely give up talent (even if the talent is below average) without knowing the replacement is almost guaranteed to be better. Too much weird stuff happens. Edit: Astros likely want to see what Tucker does before making any trades for position players.
What are the replacement level stats for a DH? Pretty sure Gattis both this year and last has been below that when playing DH, meaning that replacing that level of production shouldn't be terribly difficult. Outside of guys like Tucker, if they ever expect any of their AAA prospects to contribute, it's likely going to have to be in a non-sure-fire circumstance, just as they tried with Fisher, Reed, Davis, etc. When you have a guy with a sub-0.600 OPS for 1+ years now as a DH (his non-DH stats are irrelevant if you're not willing to play him in the field and given his career has a wide differential every single year as DH vs non-DH) and a guy with a a 0.450 OPS in your lineup, seems like an ideal time to experiment to me. The only reason to keep Gattis in that role s if you magically think he's going to become a good DH or think it will be difficult to find a mediocre DH out of your minor leagues or in a trade of those minor-league guys that you're otherwise unwilling to bring up. (edit: or if you think Gattis is tradable for something of value, though that seems unlikely also) EDIT: In the Gattis vs Stassi argument, the question to answer is whether you think 0.100-0.200 extra OPS from fielder-Gattis plus freeing up a roster spot for another player is more valuable than whatever loss of defense you get from Stassi. I don't know the answer to that one.
We need to take out the trash (Sipp, Fisher, Marisnick, and Gattis). We have 6 guys hitting over .325 in AAA and 3 guys with an OPS over 1.000. None of them are named Tucker so their service time clock is irrelevant, and most of them don't really have a ton of trade value since they are too old to be "prospects." Give them their chance. It's hard to imagine them being any worse than what we have now. We can't carry that many dumpster fires no matter how good our starting pitching has been.
He's a shitty catcher. That's why he's not a catcher anymore. They tried it, they didn't like it, and now they're trying something else. You're preaching to the choir here.
Forward thinking organizations don't think non-DH stats are irrelevant. They adjust them for the DH penalty. Even looking at just Gattis's DH stats, his OPS is 0.699 since being an Astro (1045 ABs) and his RC+ is 89. That is horrible for a DH. Reed, White, and Davis likely aren't better at DH than Gattis's DH stats (I expect Gattis at DH is likely closer to 100,105 RC+ going forward). Astros aren't going to expend resources for a temporary replacement for Gattis. Tucker will likely be up in about 4 weeks. Gattis's time is likely limited. Astros are probably hoping some catchers go down and some other organization is willing to play Gattis at catcher or that Gattis hits better. The Astros are not going to cut him unless someone better takes his place. That could be in about 4 weeks. It could be at deadline. It isn't now. Astros wanting to get a good look at Davis, White, or Reed is only reason to cut Gattis at the moment. I wouldn't be against trying out one of those guys, but it really isn't like the Astros to cut players for someone of same talent. They will at the very least, try to send him out in a trade to get someone else to pay his contract even if they have to slap a guy like Reed, Davis with him. On Stassi versus Gattis, I doubt Astros think Gattis has an OPS of 0.100 or 0.200 better in the field than Stassi going forward. Even if they did, Stassi is likely to provide 0.600-0.700 more OPS in 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 than Gattis for the Astros as Gattis will be a free agent after this year. Astros aren't cutting Stassi for Gattis.
Those guys haven't been better hitters despite not having to catch or DH as much as Gattis. I'm guessing White in the field is probably about the equal to Gattis at DH. White sitting on his butt all game is probably a worse hitter than Gattis at DH. Davis, I don't know. He hasn't seen enough ABs.
Last nights game was the highest rated Astros game on a RSN in 10 years. Sucks it had it to end with a Giles meltdown.
