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November 8, 2006

Player Profile

Gary Matthews Jr.

by Marc Normandin

One of the trendy names floating around right now in free agent discussions is that of Gary Matthews Jr. Of course, such talk reflects an extremely weak free agent class, coupled with Matthews' impressive-looking 2006 season. Matthews’s name ceratainly wasn't on anyone’s big-ticket radar prior to this year. The main question we should be asking is whether or not the production level is for real and able to be reproduced in the future, or if it was just a matter of chance and luck.

The son of former major leaguer Gary Matthews, "Little Sarge" was drafted by San Diego in the thirteenth round of the 1993 amateur draft after earning All-Conference honors during both of his years of college ball for Mission College. (The Twins drafted him in 1992, but he didn't sign.) His professional debut came with Spokane at the short-season A-ball level, where he hit a poor .209/.281/.251, striking out in almost 28 percent of all his plate appearances. His 1995 season for Low-A Clinton went just about as unsuccessfully, with a .238/.344/.314 line, but this time his BB% was close to 14 percent, and he was able to cut down his K% to 22 percent.

High-A Rancho Cucamonga in the Cal League was the next stop for Matthews, and his first hints at production appeared here, although in a subtle manner:

Year  AB   AVG /OBP / SLG  SecA  XBH%  ISO  2B+3B  BB%   K%
1996  435  .271/.360/.418  .283  33%  .147   32   12.1%  20.6%
1997  268  .302/.410/.478  .381  33%  .176   19   15.5%  18.0%

His walk rate looks swell, and his strikeout rates dropped while he increased his power and batting average, but let’s be honest, he was 22 and 23 years old, hardly young for the level, and he was repeating it in 1997. Upon promotion to Double-A Mobile at the end of the '97 season, Matthews struggled, although he kept his walk rate steady. However, repeating at Double-A, he was able to carry over his 1997 Cal League success into the 1998 season:

Year  AB   AVG/ OBP /SLG   SecA  XBH%  ISO  2B+3B  BB%   K%
1998  254  .307/.430/.480  .429  33%  .173   19   17.8%  16.2%