2008 Projection: Carlos Gomez March 30th, 2008 at 12:09 pm

By Kris Richardson

Carlos Gomez has some big shoes to fill after beating out Denard Span and Jason Pridie to replace Torii Hunter in center field. By the way, he was also the centerpiece in the Johan Santana trade. The comparisons to Hunter will come instantly as he’ll be sharing center with Hunter when the Angels open the season with a 4-game series at the dome. Although, if you ask me, the real pressure is on Torii Hunter, who needs to prove to the Angels that he’s worth the 5-year $90 million contract they gave him. Let’s look at what we can expect from Gomez:

Year	Age	AB	BA	OBP	SLG	HR	BB	K	SB
2008 ZiPS	22	324	.241	.299	.346	5	19	73	22
2007	21	125	.232	.288	.304	2	8	27	12
2006 (AA)	20	430	.281	.350	.423	7	27	97	41

Gomez is a good outfielder with a strong arm. He has tremendous speed, which is sure to make him one of the most exciting players on the team. The only problem is he has yet to prove he can hit. He has just 125 big-league at-bats, so I’d take the ZiPS projection with a grain of salt. However, the truth is he doesn’t get on base nearly enough to qualify him as a leadoff hitter, which is what he’ll be to start the season. Once he gets on base, he’s dangerous, and if he could steal the attention of pitchers with Joe Mauer and Delmon Young at the plate, that can only be a good thing.

He’s going to be a work in progress, and perhaps the fact that the Twins don’t have any strong second options should mean the Twins will give him a long enough opportunity to figure things out.

Beware of small sample sizes, but Gomez walked just 3 times in the spring and posted just a .303 OBP. He did, however post a healthy .467 slugging percentage thanks to 5 doubles and 2 triples. If he remains an everyday player throughout the season, he will get 40+ stolen bases, which would nearly double last year’s team leader, __Jason Bartlett, who had 23.

Finally, a showcase of Gomez’s speed: