The Case for Trading Evan Gattis – Revisited
Bear in full-on homer trot. Mandatory Credit: Frank Victores-USA TODAY Sports
The Basics
Evan Gattis is 28 years old; he will be 29 next August. At the same time, he’s actually still a “young” 29 – he may even be younger in “Catcher Years” than his positional heir apparent, Christian Bethancourt.
Why? Gattis was in that process of figuring out what he wanted to be when he grew up for the better part of 4 years – time in which he didn’t play any baseball. He joined the organization in 2010, so he still only has 4-1/2 professional baseball years under his belt, missing a good chunk of 2012 due to injury in the meantime.
Bethancourt has 465 games in his pro career, which started in 2009 at age 17. Gattis has 444. Moreover, while Bethancourt’s only position is Catcher, Gattis has also been known to dabble in the outfield.
While shooting through the minor leagues, Gattis had some gaudy hitting numbers: .322 in Rome with 22 homers in 88 games, .385 at Lynchburg. His AA/AAA stints were cut short – due to a wrist injury in AA, then pretty much just skipping AAA. That didn’t exactly hurt him as he has 43 homers in 213 major league games with a .253 career batting average.
Gattis has never walked a lot, and his strikeouts are elevated a bit in the majors. Some of that could be due to being used in pinch-hitting roles in key run-scoring opportunities where it’s crunch time for both he and the pitcher. Much of it is likely that he’s still getting used to major league pitching.
CONTRACT SITUATION. Gattis’ first arbitration year happens in 2016. That will keep him under team control through the 2018 season. Thus, this year, I expect him to be offered something in the $550-$600K range – a typically modest bump above the ML-minimum based on the Braves’ inclinations to do a little more than they have to for significant pre-arb contributors.
So that represents four more seasons of control – through his age 31 season.
With that as the backdrop, let’s review those updated Pros and Cons now.