Gavin Sheets: From neglect to success, and the contributing factors.

In his short tenure with the Chicago White Sox Gavin Sheets was responsible for four disappointing seasons, but it seems like in only 15 regular season games with the Padres he’s already begun to break that mold.

I am fully aware that this may be putting the cart before the horse trying to extrapolate projections based on 15 games, but hear me out…

Going into Spring Training I expected a career .220 hitter with relatively lack luster fielding potential, but boy did he flip that narrative on its head, in 24 games he strung together a very healthy .315 Batting Average with 6 home runs and a 1.077 OPS.

Since coming out the gate hot, in the regular season he’s been hitting the ball harder than ever with a 15% jump in his HardHit% which has translated into him already hitting 20% of the home runs he did last year with the White Sox.

I don’t know if the Padres hitting coach Victor Rodriguez is responsible for the uptick in production or if it’s the change in scenery, but what I do know is that if he can keep up this production and they are only paying him $1,600,000 this year, the Padres got away with highway robbery.