Brett Bateman Is Paying Early Dividends in His MLB Debut

[Brownie19]

3 hours ago, Olerud363.354 said:

Back in the day there was a guy called Brett Butler https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/butlebr01.shtml

Also a Brett.  Not a super low k rate (compared to the great hitters and the norms) but low.  

Don;t have stat casts data for him but I imagine a high ground ball rate, even spray chart, no pop-ups, super-fast. 

I don't think we are talking Kwan here.  We are talking a new type, new to this century I mean, a type that existed once but got extinct and maybe is going to come back,  Chandler Simpson, Batemen so far only the genius organizations have started to pick up on it.  

The key is speed and spraying the ground balls and no pop-ups. 

Thats actually a good comp.  Sparkplug at the top of the order.  

[hanton]

Batemans reads in CF aren't that great, has issues tracking the ball so his routes are a little off.  That will be hard to fix as it's mostly instincts.  

[Laika]

27 minutes ago, hanton said:

Batemans reads in CF aren't that great, has issues tracking the ball so his routes are a little off.  That will be hard to fix as it's mostly instincts.  

What

[hanton]

36 minutes ago, Laika said:

What

Exactly what I said, it also mentioned in his scouting report

[Spanky__99]

[Forever92]

Speed makes big addition to a lineup. Stolen base, going first to third, advancing on sacrifice fly. Puts pressure on defense, cuts off balls hit in the gap.. Many more advantages. 

[John_Havok]

5 hours ago, Laika said:

What

I dunno about the instincts thing but the route running being his weakness is accurate if you buy savants route running scores where he ranks near the bottom of the league. 

The thing is, his jump and burst combined are 2nd best in all of baseball so being 2% less efficient on routes doesn't really hurt him

[sliderguy35]

he's exactly what you want out of a 4th outfielder. he defends incredibly well, is a smart situational player and brings a ton of energy to the field.

It's also been 100 PAs without a barrel and a babip over .420. He's also not a freak outlier like a simpson / kwan who can maintain a 90%+ contact rate & <10% strikeout rate. 

even with fangraphs projecting him for an above average babip (.327) his projected average drops all the way down to .250 b/c of the strikeouts and the lack of homers to buoy it.

i pray that the front offense doesnt see him as a long term solution & actually tries to address CF in the offseason. its going to seem a lot less fun when he's a .265/.320/.330 guy in the middle of june next year.

[Laika]

3 hours ago, John_Havok said:

I dunno about the instincts thing but the route running being his weakness is accurate if you buy savants route running scores where he ranks near the bottom of the league. 

The thing is, his jump and burst combined are 2nd best in all of baseball so being 2% less efficient on routes doesn't really hurt him

I believe we would have to adjust that route number 

All the elite jump guys have "bad routes" because they start so early then adjust course 

And the bad jump guys have "straighter routes" but that's just because they wait longer read the ball more and then move 

It's a general negative correlation 

[Laika]

1 minute ago, sliderguy35 said:

he's exactly what you want out of a 4th outfielder. he defends incredibly well, is a smart situational player and brings a ton of energy to the field.

It's also been 100 PAs without a barrel and a babip over .420. He's also not a freak outlier like a simpson / kwan who can maintain a 90%+ contact rate & <10% strikeout rate. 

even with fangraphs projecting him for an above average babip (.327) his projected average drops all the way down to .250 b/c of the strikeouts and the lack of homers to buoy it.

i pray that the front offense doesnt see him as a long term solution & actually tries to address CF in the offseason. its going to seem a lot less fun when he's a .265/.320/.330 guy in the middle of june next year.

Oh he will be cemented in there

The good thing is that if he's "a baseball player" he can be slightly better than that. Better than the sum of his farts. Bunt hits, heady plays, situational stuff, etc.

And he does seem to be a "real baseball player"

[John_Havok]

5 hours ago, Laika said:

I believe we would have to adjust that route number 

All the elite jump guys have "bad routes" because they start so early then adjust course 

And the bad jump guys have "straighter routes" but that's just because they wait longer read the ball more and then move 

It's a general negative correlation 

For sure, that's why i'm not concerned about it. 

And, it also needs context. The route running numbers are all within like 4 feet of inefficiency from top to bottom of the league. Thats less than half a stride.

[Spanky__99]

22 hours ago, 43211234 said:

91 rest-of-season wRC+ projection from Steamer for Bateman now. Seems a bit optimistic but I'll take it.

 

 

This play yesterday was maybe the first one he "didn't make"

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=42ecb3d6-ebf5-3dbe-933b-69356f4e86fe

 

But then you see that it had a 10% catch probability according to Statcast. He got there and just boxed it up a bit. The defence looks completely legit. He's getting great jumps.

 

15 hours ago, hanton said:

Batemans reads in CF aren't that great, has issues tracking the ball so his routes are a little off.  That will be hard to fix as it's mostly instincts.  

[hanton]

4 hours ago, Spanky__99 said:

 

they will try and get him to chase or induce weak contact inside but they won't succeed

[Bob_Gratton]

On 9/4/2026 at 8:38 PM, Brownie19 said:

It's great to see that Bateman has 95 percentile arm strength. It was brutal watching post surgery Varsho and his limp d*ck arm.

Varsho vs Bateman, defensively they are both good. But offensively, Bateman is an upgrade to Varsho. Yes Bateman don't have power, but with his speed, number of single and all the BB he get, it's what Jays need for a leadoff hitter.