However, he does walk quite a bit. His OBP this season between A/AA is .418, which is an excellent number. It is 75 points higher than his batting average which is also a good ratio. Gaston hasn't been nearly as good as Clemens with an OPS over 100 points lower, but he walks a lot and has really good power (31 HR). I don't care how much a guy strikes out if you can produce power like that and mix in a lot of walks, that the sign of good hitter. Don't always count strikeouts as a sign of poor plate discipline. A strikeout is the same as a groundout or popout, and if you have a runner on base its better to strikeout than ground into a DP.
Up until about 2 weeks ago, Gaston was blowing away Clemens and the entire Cal League. Once Gaston hit HR #30, I think he may have been pressing to tie the Lancaster record of 31. He went into a pretty good slump and Clemens blew up, hence this thread. Gaston, by the way, hit #31 last night. I only brought up Gaston's SO total because of what the other poster you quoted said about Clemens. He seemed to be being overly critical so I brought up Gaston, who had been the big name at Lancaster most of the season. Also, Clemens is walking at almost the same rate as Gaston with better power numbers and a lesser SO rate. I agree with this. In this day and age, SOs seem to be less significant than in the past.
