Quote Originally Posted by War Machine Dawg View Post
1) I get the age argument, but Gattis was out of the game for several years. His knees don't have the wear and tear most catchers do by their late 20s. Just seems like a cop out excuse from suits in an office.

2) That may be the consensus, but my eyes told me a different story after watching him for the better part of two seasons. Put it like this, after watching Gattis last year and watching Bethancourt this year, if I didn't know anything about either and you told me that Bethancourt is supposed to be the defensive stud between the two, I'd laugh in your face and call you insane.

We got a lot for Gattis, it just irks me to see a guy get run down by a bunch of guys sitting in an office who either never played or haven't played in about 120 years. It just seems like Gattis got a reputation early on in the minors, fairly or not, and it never changed regardless of how he actually played. Especially when he's a guy who'd be a huge upgrade in the middle of our lineup this season. Having Markakis batting 4 with 0 HRs this close to the ASB is horrific. I know he's not a 20+ HR guy, but he's been pretty consistent about hitting 15 HRs. At this point I'll be shocked if he winds up with 10. He needs to be hitting 2 or 8 if he isn't providing any sort of power threat behind Freeman.
even if you accept Gattis as a starting C, you still only want him playing about 100 games there. since he's even worse in LF than behind the plate, his value is maximized in the AL, where he can DH a good bit even if he does catch a good bit. true, if we kept him and he hit 40 bombs this year, we'd have gotten more for him, but if he got hurt, looked bad behind the plate, or slumped, then we'd have gotten far far less. it was a good trade given that this is a rebuilding year.