Gamel Time
Yesterday, Brewers top hitting prospect Mat Gamel made his season debut as a pinch hitter. Milwaukee summoned him from Triple-A, where he was tearing the cover off the ball, hitting .336/.428/.647 with 20 extra base hits in 145 plate appearances. As a 23-year-old with serious thump in his bat, the Brewers realized that he had little left to learn in the Pacific Coast League, and have brought him up to help them contend for the NL Central title this year.
No one questions Gamel’s bat. Everyone questions his glove, however. His lack of range and stiff hands are a significant problem at third base, and even at first base, the reviews aren’t good. More than once, it’s been suggested that Gamel’s best position is probably designated hitter, which doesn’t exist in the National League. A significantly improved defense was one of the main keys to the Brewers run last year, and they are understandably cautious about weakening their defense by giving Gamel significant playing time.
However, they should give him a shot at third base against right handed pitchers. Bill Hall is having a nice rebound season from his miserable 2008 campaign, but he’s the quintessential platoon player. In 2007, he hit .247/.305/.408 against right-handers. Last year, that fell to .174/.242/.316. This year, he’s at .212/.316/.333. Hall can hit lefties (career .862 OPS versus southpaws), but he’s vulnerable against right-handed pitching.
The Brewers line-up has enough lefty mashers. Seven of their eight position players are right-handed, with only Prince Fielder swinging a lefty bat in their regular line-up. Gamel, even with his fielding issues, would offer a little bit more balance and give them a significant offensive upgrade at the hot corner against RHPs. Hall could still sub in as a defensive replacement and play against lefties, so the time share would be something along the lines of 70-30 in favor of Gamel.
His defense is bad, but the opportunity to get a real hitter against right-handed pitching in the line-up at third base is one the Brewers shouldn’t turn down.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
nice look at Gamel/Hall. Two quibbles though- Gamel made his major league debut last season (he got 2 ABs (1 hit) in September) and Nashville is in the PCL, not the IL.
You mention that he can hit lefties, but didn’t we learn from The Book that a RHB’s observed platoon splits have little predictive value no matter how large or small the platoon ratio or the sample size? I think it was around 2,000 PA against a LHP that a RHB’s platoon ratio became reliable.
I dont quite understand this comment. Are you trying to say that platoons are a good idea? What value are you tring to predict?
If you have a RHB who hits LHP well but not RHP, and a LHB who hits RHP well but not LHP, then common sense says that a platoon of those 2 players would be an offensive upgrade vs playing 1 full time.
edit, 1st sentence should say platoons ARENT a good idea
What he’s saying is that there’s little variation in ‘true talent’ platoon difference for right-handed batters, and that you’d need a lot of samples to detect what small variation there is. So the fact that Hall has a higher than average platoon difference is most likely statistical noise. This is not to say that a platoon doesn’t make sense in this situation, where you have two players of opposite handedness with similar talent levels.
No mention of Counsell? He and Hall can split time at 3rd, while also spelling Hardy and Weeks. Add in pinch hitting, and I don’t see why Hall and Counsell can’t combine for 700 abs this season. Gamel’s future is as a corner outfielder. He’s been called up to pinch hit and DH in the upcoming interleague series, and maybe get one last extended assessment from Willie Randolph, infield coach extraordinaire, to see if the defensive flaws are correctable.
I’m not a big Cory Hart fan, so I wouldn’t mind seeing gamel out there in RF soon if 3rd base turns out to be unrealistic. Hart has a little too much Francouer in him for my taste.
Why not trade that Gamel guy for that Beltre guy and make a push for the playoffs with GG defense at third?
Because the difference between a Bill Hall/Craig Counsell platoon and Beltre is not the cost of Mat Gamel.
Please Gamel, Don’t Hurt ‘Em
The Brewers should probably be rid of Corey Hart sooner rather than later. Between Hardy and Alcides Escobar, the Brewers should be excellent defensively in the middle infield. Rickie Weeks is having a terrific defensive year at 2B, though this is something of an anomaly. It seems certain that he would be a defensive upgrade over Corey Hart in RF. (So, for that matter, would J.J. Hardy if the Brewers wanted to leave Weeks at 2B.) Since Hart is hitting so poorly, and has been for more than a year now, it’s hard to imagine Escobar’s bat hurting the Brewers more than the defensive upgrade would help.
The question is: what trade value does Hart have? Not as much now as in 2007, presumably, but perhaps enough to upgrade their starting pitching a tick or two.
Such a move – which would upgrade both their defense and their starting pitching – would mitigate to some extent the effect of Gamel’s poor defense were he to be platooned with Bill Hall. And Gamel’s bat ain’t going to hurt either.
Actually, Hart has been hitting very well to start off the season, in particular showing a newfound patience, which was always the weakest part of his offensive game. In fact, if I’m not mistaken, he’s already drawn more than half as many walks as he did all last season. Furthermore, his defense really isn’t that bad in RF; most metrics show him about average, IIRC. As for moving Hardy to a different position after calling up Escobar, Hardy is resistant to changing positions, and will probably be traded before he hits free agency in 2011
Or maybe they can wait until Escobar actually hits in AAA before they give him a job in Milwaukee.
According to FanGraphs WAR measurement, Corey Hart is a replacement-level player. That’s due to roughly league average hitting and fielding to the tune of 3 runs cost the team so far this year. Hart has drawn more walks this year, and yet his OBP stands at a miserable .325.
He may improve. I doubt we should expect 2007-level from him, but something better than the numbers he’s put up since 2008 wouldn’t be unreasonable. I worry, though: it seems that the whole league has figured out that Hart is unable to hit breaking balls away. Combine that with a “I’m here to swing at stuff” approach, and you get a potentially grim future.
He’s replacement level over a small sample size at the moment; he’s been slumping for the past week or so, and still is a league average hitter (BTW, his OBP for 2009 is at .347; .325 is his career OBP). The league seemed to have figured out that he’s chasing breaking balls off the plate, but *now he isn’t chasing those pitches anymore*, hence his increased walk rate.
And if you reference his numbers from last year, keep in mind that he was tearing the cover off the ball for most of last year until September, when he ran out of gas and had an absolutely miserable month.
In other words, he will bounce back and start hitting more, like he did for most of 2008, and like he did earlier this year, whereas Escobar won’t hit well, Hardy doesn’t want to move to second, and there’s no guarantee that Weeks would adapt well to RF. Getting rid of Hart and initiating a series of defensive moves is a bad solution to a problem that doesn’t exist, frankly.
You’re right – I misread Hart’s OBP numbers. Still, warnings about small sample size cut both ways: he’s got a .341 BABIP this season, so his OBP number is probably a bit inflated. Some of it is due to lucky hits.
Also: September counts. I don’t really get making excuses for players who play really terribly for awhile. If they’re prone to playing terribly sometimes, then that’s something we have to take into account in evaluating them. If talking about a player’s current slump is a small sample size fallacy, then so is selectively choosing to ignore months when he plays badly. (I don’t think that’s true in cases of verifiable injury, but that’s not the case with Hart.)
Hart’s swinging at far fewer pitches out of the zone (22.5% this year; 26.9% career), but he’s missing them when he does: he makes contact 40.6% of the time, but has done so at a career rate of 52.4%. League average is 62.5% So that tells me that Hart still doesn’t know which pitches to swing at, even if he’s swinging at fewer of them this year than before. If his o-contact % were closer to league average, I’d believe that he’s become a good hitter. But he misses *a lot.*
I was wondering if Dave would respond to my post because I’m not sure??
It took me five reads to realize you meant mashers of lefties, not mashers who are lefties. This is the worst article ever.
If you couldn’t figure it out after a 2nd read you need some help. The second sentence makes it completely clear what the 1st one meant.
Really? You should read more often. You’ll pick it up really quickly. Even children do.
Only downside is I promise you, you will come across articles much, much worse than this.
You know, I was going to chastise him for ridiculous hyperbole, but then your comment made me reassess the situation. You’re right: simple aliteracy (as opposed to illiteracy) would explain it in full.
Curtis: there’s probably at least one unfamiliar word in my first sentence. To cope with this there’s a tool called a dictionary. These can be found both online and in the physical world in the form of a large book. It’s a worthwhile thing to get to know as you voyage into the world of reading (especially when you encounter phrases like “elaborate condescension”). Also, if you’re older than 10 or so, you might want to consider suing whatever school system is responsible for your “education.”
Wow, remind me never to try my hand at satire on the internet again.
When I figure out how to create a font for sarcasm, I’m going to be rich!
Internet sarcasm is tricky, and the authors here get far too many real comments like the joke you attempted.
you mean like “/s”?
I mean like you stare at it long enough getting angry, and then suddenly it changes to make you feel dumb for not catching it, like those pictures that suddenly throw a screaming zombie in your face after you stare at them too long.
Decrying the entire article over a minor ambiguity should have been a dead giveaway from the start. You people are the worst.
Maybe it’s time to shift Hardy to second and try Escobar out at short. At the very least he should be able to add above average defense.
?? ??, ????? ????? ????? ?? ????? ???? ????? ?????? ? ?????????? ???????. ??????? 🙂