Gunnar vs. Adley

[Jim'sKid26]

If you adjust for potential injury risk I would go with Gunnar. Catchers get hurt and when they do it takes away their abilities at a rate that is not typically seen in infielders. If Gunnar ends up as a 3B he could be great for a long time with his skill set. 

[Frobby]

4 hours ago, MarCakes21 said:

I concur.  I would temper expectations, for 8 WAR, but even in a rookie year where he could produce 5.4 WAR in 2/3 of the total games, tough not to be excited.

So, he produced at a 7.2 rWAR pace in his rookie year, but that includes the slow first few weeks.   He was at about an 8 WAR pace from July - Sept.  I think it’s pretty realistic to think he can put up some 8 WAR seasons.  

[Pickles]

I'll add one thing to my comment: If we're judging solely by career WAR, I think Gunnar has the odds there, because of age and position.  But I went with Adley because I think his peak will be appreciably higher.

[SilverRocket]

If we're talking just during years of team control, I'd say Adley. Gunnar will have more career WAR due to starting younger. If we start talking extensions for effectively their whole careers, then that's a more interesting question. Would you rather have Buster Posey or Manny Machado?

[DrungoHazewood]

5 hours ago, Frobby said:

From a Ben Clemens chat:

O’s 2024: Would you rather build a team around Gunnar or Adley? (love that both of them can go by first name only)

Ben Clemens: Adley for me

Ben Clemens: Gunnar is a great prospect, of course. I think Rutschman is on the ‘once in a generation catcher’ side of things, though, whereas Henderson is a nice hitter with defensive value

——-

I agree with this assessment.   I think Gunnar may have a higher ceiling with the bat, but Adley just has a combination of skills you don’t see every day.   It’s hard for me to imagine him going through a healthy season and putting  less than 5 rWAR even in a down year, and I thibk his up years (maybe even next year) are going to be north of 8 rWAR.

Anyway, I’m glad we don’t have to choose.  

I'd argue the other way around.  Gunnar is three years younger and isn't a catcher.  Catching just takes a lot out of you.  There are non-catchers like Lou Whitaker and Larry Walker who have similar career WAR totals to Johnny Bench, who was probably the greatest catcher ever. And they are struggling to get significant HOF votes.  

Gunnar will have to have something go pretty wrong to not be at least a very solid MLB regular for well over a decade.  Adley could just be a catcher and randomly miss three half-seasons to injury and then have 2-3 other years where he takes a foul tip off his meat hand in April and it just isn't right and OPSes .720.

Adley could potentially have a HOF career for a catcher and still not quite have the value of a borderline HOF SS/3B, especially starting off three years older than Gunnar.

[DrungoHazewood]

6 minutes ago, SilverRocket said:

If we're talking just during years of team control, I'd say Adley. Gunnar will have more career WAR due to starting younger. If we start talking extensions for effectively their whole careers, then that's a more interesting question. Would you rather have Buster Posey or Manny Machado?

Yea, that's exactly what I was getting at in my last post.  Manny might end up playing another 10 years until he's 40 and getting 3500 hits and close to 100 WAR.  Manny today has more career PAs than Buster Posey.

So the question really is dependent on if you mean value in the six years of team control, or career value.

[Sports Guy]

Some of this depends on what Gunnar plays.

I would look at this way.  Would I trade Adley for Gunnar?  Yea I think so.  I don’t think I would trade Gunnar for Adley.

Need obviously matters there.

 

[MarCakes21]

19 hours ago, Frobby said:

So, he produced at a 7.2 rWAR pace in his rookie year, but that includes the slow first few weeks.   He was at about an 8 WAR pace from July - Sept.  I think it’s pretty realistic to think he can put up some 8 WAR seasons.  

That's scary exciting.

[Sports Guy]

 

[btdart20]

17 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

 

A little improvement and Tork's HOVG material!

[AlbNYfan]

Pretty absurd notion "building around one player" in baseball. Angels, Ohtani 9+WAR, Trout 5 WAR...14 WAR between the two. Angels finished 16 games under .500 baseball with two of the better players in the game. Does the rest of the team's WAR add up to a -30?? IMO you need 4-5 everyday players to build around plus 3 front line starting pitchers, bull pen with a decent setup man and strong closer. Baseball is not basketball.

[Tony-OH]

On 10/5/2022 at 10:32 AM, LookinUp said:

I'd sign them both next year. Goal needs to be something like 10 more years with Gunnar. 7-8 with Adley.

Give or take. But there'd be no doubt they are cornerstones if I was the owner.

Had Gunnar gone to college, he would have been drafted this year. Assuming he developed in the same way in college, gotta imagine he'd be 1-1 this year too, so not sure draft pedigree should be taken into consideration.

As good as Gunnar is, and he very well is probably the better overall hitting prospect when it's all said and done (afterall he's 3 years younger and look at those EVs_ it's hard to find a catcher who can hit like Adley. Can't really go wrong building around either though and thankfully, we get to build around them both.

[OriolesMagic83]

On 10/5/2022 at 2:14 PM, SilverRocket said:

If we're talking just during years of team control, I'd say Adley. Gunnar will have more career WAR due to starting younger. If we start talking extensions for effectively their whole careers, then that's a more interesting question. Would you rather have Buster Posey or Manny Machado?

Buster Posey was the center of 3 World Series teams.  Manny hasn't even been to a World Series.  I'll take Posey.

[tntoriole]

On 10/5/2022 at 9:19 AM, MarCakes21 said:

Yea, that's only a problem for the cost to lock them up at the given age once they hit FA.  Henderson you'd be locking up in his prime, Adley you'd be locking up on a potential downhill.

For value though, I'd imagine you're more likely to get peak Adley value than Henderson.

Do you try to sign Gunnar now to long term deal? 

[Frobby]

4 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

Had Gunnar gone to college, he would have been drafted this year. Assuming he developed in the same way in college, gotta imagine he'd be 1-1 this year too, so not sure draft pedigree should be taken into consideration.

As good as Gunnar is, and he very well is probably the better overall hitting prospect when it's all said and done (afterall he's 3 years younger and look at those EVs_ it's hard to find a catcher who can hit like Adley. Can't really go wrong building around either though and thankfully, we get to build around them both.

As an aside, when we won the World Series in 1983, Eddie Murray was 27 and Cal Ripken was 23.   Talk about two players to build around!   Yet we never went to the playoffs again for 13 years, by which time Eddie had been traded away and then traded back.  We had a 54-win team in a year in which both those guys were healthy.  Just goes to show that even two stud players don’t guarantee a good team.  Just ask the current Angels!  It’s a nice start but it takes a lot of good players to have a great team.