Sure enough... Even more LOL*, since June 19: .132/.220/.340/.560. I just... I don't know... I can't wrap my head around Chris Carter. I sort of understand your perspective (his hot streaks are worth the colder streaks, right?) but........ that's just... the idea of rewarding wild inconsistency makes my head hurt. * Or, COL? Cry Out Loud?....
Exactly When speaking of Gattis vs Carter, you (not you specifically) can't knock Carter's defense when the guy being favored is not only a poor defender, but likely worse. No one believes Hinch is too dumb to not bypass Carter's subpar D when he believes Gattis would do better at 1B.
For me, this is the make or break 2+ months. If he's able to rebound his slugging % to respectable numbers by going on an extended hot streak (again), I'll concede.... he is who he is, and you have to play him everyday (no matter how painful it is) in order to eventually achieve that. If not, last year's hot streak looks more and more like the "fluke", and we have a player that has regressed overall, with lows that are simply not sustainable on a contending team.... and they're going to need to move on this off-season. I just hate having a situation where potential "inaction" right now (while they're just waiting for him to go on a tear), is going to cost this team games... and likely a division lead.
He's signed through this year, arbitration-eligible next year? They could, in theory, decline to offer arbitration and move on, free and clear, right?... My guess is that they want Singleton to make the decision for them. If he starts producing, with him locked up @ $2MM - you let Carter walk and reallocate his likely $5+MM elsewhere. If not, they're probably content to live with Carter for $5+MM.
I'm actually extremely confident of who Carter is, and I don't like him. He's a wild up and down player, who is a DH costing us runs at first. I don't like Gattis either for that matter. But once you have started a year with Carter, it's best to just avert your eyes and let it happen. Resist the urge to vomit when he goes through one of his Carter spells where he strikes out while looking like he doesn't even care. Ultimately he will end up with a respectable OPS by years end. I want us to upgrade the position, I wanted them to upgrade last season. But as is, he is likely our best option over the course of 162.
I would say my position on Carter and Gattis is very similar to this. I'm not too confident where their value will end up at end of year, but they're likely the best options at 1B and DH and not likely completely worthless. Definitely upgrade-able, but typically going to be costly. I thought Gattis was going to be a better version of Carter and Carter would be removed when Singelton was ready.
I'm EXTREMELY confused as to why so many people on this board dislike Gattis so much. He's hitting .242, is on pace for 28 HR and 100 rbi's. Those are actually pretty darn good numbers and I suspect his average will be closer to .260 by end of year. I'm even more baffled by the comparisons to Carter. This guy is hitting almost 50 points less and has 10 fewer RBI and 1 more HR. I assume most of you have grown up watching quite a bit of baseball if you're active on a forum. It's very easy to see that Gattis is the far superior hitter and baseball player in general. Stop comparing the two
You think Evan Gattis is going to hit .275+ over the season's second half? That's a fairly lofty expectation. And FYI, Carter is one pace to hit 30 HRs and, if he were batting 3/4 as Gattis often is, would also likely be on pace for 100 RsBI (as is, he's on pace for 80 - and that's with guys like Gattis and his .272 OB% hitting ahead of him). Driving in runners is more opportunity than skill. Gattis makes more outs than Chris Carter. His walk rate (current pace is > 25) is atrocious. The reason they're offten compared (along with Valbuena) is that they all are seemingly similiar offensive players (with Valbuena distinguishing himself, defensively) - their only value is tied directly to their ability to slug because they simply don't do much else at the plate. As newer fans jump on the Astro bandwagon, they're going to have to wrap their heads around the idea that some of the more traditional benchmarks (BA, RsBI) don't really apply as significantly with this team.
All that being said, I'd like to see people break down Gattis' season in much the same way as Carter's (i.e. - in small snippets when he's at his "best" vs. excluding his worst). Gattis' low was definitely to start the season... seems to have been more consistent since (and has actually seen his OBP steadily rise, while his slugging remains tolerable). In the end, both guys need to be slugging to be worth it. Carter, while being quite "selective" this season, will forever be batting behind Gattis (and lower in the lineup altogether) if he can't do much better than a .400 slugging %.
Really? (checks B-R.com, confirms...) Impressive. His OB% is still hovering below .300 (.298) - but that is markedly better, overall. And he's also slugging .512 - I'll certainly take that. My gosh, Gattis/Carter were sooooooooooo remarkably cold to start the year. Wow.
Any reasonable analysis of Carter and Gattis are going to come to the same results. They both likely sucked early in the year, but are expected to be better in second half. Granted, neither looks to be great players. Carter's production of late looks very similar to his production of old after a really bad start. He can't erase the bad start. It happened and will likely bring down every stat from this season throughout the season. Peripheral stats still suggest he's likely a below average everyday player....but just a little bit more below average than I thought he was at beginning of the year. Gattis is very frustrating to me. He started bad. Was great. Was almost as bad again. I think he'll be better than Carter in the long run. Singleton, Santana, and Tucker don't look like they would do better in 1B and DH roles.
Since the 12th game of the season Carter has a .798 OPS, and a 36/96 pace. The two of them are very similar. Carter strikes out more,and walks more. While Gattis puts the ball in play more, but with less authority because he swings at so many bad balls, so his BABIP is usually very low. Ultimately their results OPS wise are likely to be very similar by years end. They both are major defensive liabilities, with Carter being slightly less terrible.
But as long as this front office and manager continues to bat Gattis ahead of Carter (which has been the case all season), you can pretty much tell which one is perceived to be playing better currently... and who has the higher expectations going forward. Gun to their heads.... they're likely choosing Gattis over Carter. And that's before we've seen them start to sit Carter a couple of times over the last week since Singleton has been promoted. I also don't think they need to be tied at the hip... since there is no way they can get rid of both of them at this point.
Excluding the beginning of the year, his lows haven't been as low... whereas Carter has bottomed out in an extended fashion over multiple runs (bookended by mini streaks). There is value to consistency and not bottoming out.
Of course they will. Gattis is by far the fastest player on the team as his 4 triples indicate. They don't want Carter clogging the bases for him.
Carter has been benched 2 times, and Gattis once, not that much difference. Given how much you rag on Carters defense, Gattis is even worse. Gattis does appear to be less streaky than Carter, and I believe would get the gun to the head nod over Carter given that and salary. I just get tired Carter being the whipping boy, despite the fact that him and Gattis are extremely comparable results wise. Gattis is the great cleanup hitter, while Carter is the team killing buffoon that just strikes out a lot.
Carter has a perception issue: 1) casual fans don't really value walks, *especially* when it's a power hitter as they're expected to be... powerful; 2) he strikes out too much, and that, too, sticks out with fans. A hitter flailing and missing a pitch, as opposed to meekly grounding the same pitch to 2B, looks worse; 3) Gattis has more RsBI and casual fans do value those. If Carter hit 3/4 consistently, he'd have as many RsBI, if not more, than Gattis. But he doesn't. Carter's on pace to hit 30 HRs. I haven't really dig deeply into Carter's season but I assume he's hitting fewer 2Bs?
