Scooter Gennett gets called up to MLB

[JohnBriggs12]

Anybody see the play Scooter made last night? It was vintage Gantner. Weeks gets to that ball too, but often doesn't field it cleanly or if he does, makes an off target throw.

[Roderick]

Having guys like Gennett at $400K a year to fill out the roster rather than guys like Yuni B, Cesar Izturis, Mark Kotsay, etc is definitely worth something.

 

Those guys can all play more than one position, and don't make a ton more than the min wage of $490K.

 

If Gennett isn't the starting 2B on your team, does he have any value? I suppose if the starting 2B could move over to SS in a pinch, then you can bring Gennett in to play 2B off the bench.

 

I agree that have a pre-arby min wage guy taking a spot helps out the team budget, but if he is an average defender with a .700 ops, he would also be a player the club would probably target to replace at the latest by his last 1-2 arby years.

[Funketown]

Yuni and Kotsay couldn't even play one position well though, so it's not really fair to consider them as players who had value because of their defense.

 

Again, I'm not saying Gennett is anything more than a piece to round out a roster, but based on what I've seen I think he's somewhere between replacement level and an average MLB player.

 

Perhaps I'm being overly optimistic about his defense being near average though; I haven't watched too much through the last few months and if he's a significantly below average defender that erodes much of his value. The front office will be able to watch him closely for the next month, and hopefully they feel they have enough information to have a decent idea of how good he'll be defensively going forward.

[logan82]

I agree that have a pre-arby min wage guy taking a spot helps out the team budget, but if he is an average defender with a .700 ops, he would also be a player the club would probably target to replace at the latest by his last 1-2 arby years.

 

If he can play average defense and post at least a .700 OPS he would be close to an average 2B. The question has always been whether or not he can do either let alone both.

[Fear The Chorizo]

Bottom line - Weeks is paid like a top tier 2B that should be a big time run scorer and run producer. Gennett is probably little more than a replacement level player who could have a defined role on a good team. The fact there's even a comparison/discussion on Gennett taking playing time from Weeks is more of an indictment on Weeks' than an endoresement for Gennett.

 

No, Weeks is paid like an average starting player.

 

For 2013, Weeks is the 5th highest paid 2B in all of baseball. Only Utley, Cano, Uggley, and Kinsler have higher salaries. Weeks is also the Brewers' highest paid player for 2013.

[Funketown]

More accurately, Weeks is paid like a post-arbitration average starting player. I'm guessing that he's something like 4th out of 10 qualified post-arb 2B's, but I don't want to look up the numbers.

[SoupTown]

I am not sure the 'average' starter in MLB is on $10 mill a year.

 

re the comment: 'As our pitching will likely never be in the top 5 in the league...', I am sad. I do not want to be a fan of a team with crappy pitching and crappy defense being lugged around with a bunch of old, slow ex-home run hitter.

 

I like baseball because it blends pitching, and defence, and thinking, and hitting. Maybe the Crew should move to a slow pitch softball league.

[TURBO]

Scooter has no power, none. He is only a singles hitter.

[torts]

Scooter has no power, none. He is only a singles hitter.

 

 

LOVE THIS

[TURBO]

I have been a big Scooter supporter since his season in Appleton. Same with Davis. Now they are getting their shot, and making the most of it. Small samples yes, but compared to the absolute garbage we put up with at 2B this year, Scooter is doing his job admirably.

 

Love it when the young guys step up, hopefully, RRR and Melvin are beginning to realize that you don't have to be a well traveled grisly veteran to help a team win... Take notes boys, learn from this for once.

[The stache]

Multi home run games this year by Khris Davis and Scooter Gennett: 2

 

Multi home run games this year by Ryan Braun, Corey Hart, Rickie Weeks, and Aramis Ramirez: 0

 

Oh, the times they are a changing in Milwaukee.

[The stache]

Scooter has no power, none. He is only a singles hitter.

 

He doesn't always have the hang time that Khris Davis does, but they count the same on the scoreboard.

[JohnBriggs12]

I have a question. Forget for a second what you've read from the experts that rank prospects, and lets suppose too that you have no access to what a player has done in the minor leagues or where he was drafted. Just based on what you've observed from him in a Brewer uniform, what makes anyone think that right now Scooter Gennett isn't ready to be an everyday 2B in the big leagues? No fair if you can remember that Pedro Garcia hit .294/.339/.468 in his first 2 !/2 months in the big leagues back in 1973, but ultimately was a .220/.267/.348 career hitter.

[Outlander]

He does pass the eye test which surprised me. His approach at the plate is much better than I thought.

[TURBO]

Exactly. Time to start judging the kid on what he is doing right now, than what the so called experts on this board and in the media have been saying all along.

 

I watched him in Appleton for a year in person, and he was a lot of fun to watch play the game.

 

No clue what his career holds, but right now, he is a joy to watch!

[jerichoholicninja]

How quickly we forget Martin Malanado or Mike Fiers. How are they doing this year?

 

Ronnie Belliard, Casey McGehee, Bill Hall, Nyjer Morgan all had streaks of brilliance but were pretty crappy the rest of the time. Even Yuni played like an All Star for a month. I like what I've seen and it's exciting but I'm not getting my hopes up yet.

[igor67]

I think your over simplifying how scouts have felt about Gennet in the past Rickey. A number including Sickels were fairly high on him because of the hit tool, the excitement declined over the last couple of years because he hadn't seemed to improve beyond what he did back then and stat wise then his number kept dropping.

[Daubs]

Multi home run games this year by Khris Davis and Scooter Gennett: 2

 

Multi home run games this year by Ryan Braun, Corey Hart, Rickie Weeks, and Aramis Ramirez: 0

 

Oh, the times they are a changing in Milwaukee.

 

Weeks and Aramis both have had a multi-homer game this year

[reillymcshane]

Regarding the eye test, Scooter's swing looks a little long to me. I'd expect it to be a bit more compact. A long swing can sometimes be exploited by opposing pitchers - especially with outside breaking balls. Combine that with Scooter's aggressive at the plate, and you could see him struggle in the future. Lots of strikeouts and a low walk rate.

 

Obviously he's doing great right now, so maybe I'm nitpicking. And to be honest, I've only seen him in 4-5 games - so it's not a lot to go on.

 

I don't know Scooter's splits in the minors, but I'd be curious to see if he's struggled against lefties. Lefties with longer swings often times are vulnerable to left handed pitchers.

 

Perhaps Scooter's size makes me think he should have a little more compact swing.

 

I will say that the thing that's surprised me most about Scooter is that I think he's showed he is stronger than he looks. He's only 23, so I'm hoping he's more than just a singles hitter. He's certainly been great in August. I hope he continues to go crazy.

[homer]

Scooter Gennett played about 450 games in the minors. He hit a total of 26 home runs (highest slugging percentage was .463 in A ball and a whopping .371 in the launch happy PCL this season). Are you guys actually saying that the .538 slugging percentage in 37 games in the majors are what we'll see going forward? Because if you are saying that I would like to bet you a lot of money that he won't come close to that.

[Funketown]

It is worth giving some weight to Gennett's abnormal power surge, though for me that means upping my Scooter Gennett slugging expectation from .375 to .400 or so. I thought he would be a 3-5 HR type of player, and now he looks like he might be a guy who can get into double digits (hopefully teens with some growth).

[TooLiveBrew]

I don't know Scooter's splits in the minors, but I'd be curious to see if he's struggled against lefties. Lefties with longer swings often times are vulnerable to left handed pitchers

I don't know when they added this, but Baseball-Reference picked up the gap in their market left behind by minorleaguesplits.com taking their content offline. BB-Ref offers MiLB spilts now; simply click on the "Minors" link on any player page. Batting splits links are right above the "Player News" section, just below the player name/height/weight/etc. info.

 

2013: .820 OPS v.RHP, .614 OPS v.LHP

2012: .759 OPS v.RHP, .607 OPS v.LHP

 

http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=gennet001rya

[reillymcshane]

I don't know Scooter's splits in the minors, but I'd be curious to see if he's struggled against lefties. Lefties with longer swings often times are vulnerable to left handed pitchers

I don't know when they added this, but Baseball-Reference picked up the gap in their market left behind by minorleaguesplits.com taking their content offline. BB-Ref offers MiLB spilts now; simply click on the "Minors" link on any player page. Batting splits links are right above the "Player News" section, just below the player name/height/weight/etc. info.

 

2013: .820 OPS v.RHP, .614 OPS v.LHP

2012: .759 OPS v.RHP, .607 OPS v.LHP

 

http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=gennet001rya

TooLive, thanks. I didn't realize Baseball Reference had added splits. This is fabulous. Thanks.

[TooLiveBrew]

TooLive, thanks. I didn't realize Baseball Reference had added splits. This is fabulous. Thanks.

Hah! That's exactly how I felt when I found out. I want to say it was homer that tipped me off, in some other thread.

[DuWayne Steurer]

As nice as it is to see Scooter hitting well, I'm going to temper my enthusiasm for a while. Anybody can hit well over a small sample. The Yuni-Bomber had an .848 OPS for March/April of this year, for point-in-case.

 

Scooter's minor league sample is just too large a body of work for me to get over-excited about what he's done in just over 100 big league plate appearances. All but one of his homeruns have pretty much been wall scrapers.

 

I'm not saying I'm not happy with his production, I just think the precedent of a .745 OPS guy who's slipped at every step of the ladder coming up is suddenly a .900 OPS guy coming up is a pretty rare occurrence. I think the explanation that he's just having a hot month over and above what his normal production should be expected to be is a lot easier to swallow.

 

I'd still be surprised if Scooter can put up a .725-ish OPS over a full season, given his inability to draw too many walks.