When MLB teams consider whether to sign free agents to deals, they can’t just consider what the player has done in the past. They have to consider what a player will do in the future.
That’s the task this offseason for anyone contemplating a contract for Jazz Chisholm Jr., and that includes the New York Yankees, who could choose to bring back Chisholm if the price is right.
Baseball is a game with as much statistical history as any, and so it’s often possible to try and draw conclusions about players who have come before.
In this case, does the long history of baseball provide clues about the type of player Chisholm will be going forward?
Maybe it can, but it also can bring up quite the oddities if you dig deeply enough.
Like, for example, that Chisholm is oddly similar to a 270-pound catcher.
Jazz Chisholm Similarity to Evan Gattis
Baseball Reference’s vast database includes a cool tool known as the “Similarity Score.” It looks at the scope of a player’s career and identifies who that player has the most in common with statistically throughout baseball history.
The player that Chisholm is second-most similar to in all of baseball history is Evan Gattis.
Gattis, pictured above, was a hefty catcher with a big beard who ended up playing some left field and a lot of DH.
At his peak, Gattis sprayed powerful line drives all over the ballpark.
Of course, Chisholm and Gattis seem nothing alike, so how does this work?
The score isn’t putting a ton of stock into the fact that Chisholm steals a lot of bases and Gattis doesn’t. Instead, it’s looking a lot at their high slugging percentage compared to a low batting average during different seasons along the way — sort of a look under the hood at how each guy has been productive at the plate.
In this case, it likely doesn’t give a lot of clues how Chisholm will fare as a free agent. It’s hard to predict how an athlete like him will age relative to a sturdy fella like Gattis.
It’s ironic to think about, though — and for those wondering, Chisholm is listed as most similar to current Astros slugger Isaac Paredes. Maybe all this says that Chisholm is meant to play in Houston.
Yankees Future
Chisholm spoke positively about the Yankees at the end of the season. It seems likely that he’d return if New York would have him.
The Yankees, though, might have a positional logjam that they have to work through, and so it’s a complicated equation in the Bronx.
There might be a team out there willing to give Chisholm a huge contract, and if that’s the case, the Yanks might have to let him go. But maybe they’ll find the money in their coffers to keep around an athletic second baseman with a bizarrely similar statistical profile to a bulky catcher.
Yankees’ Jazz Chisholm Oddly Similar to 270-Pound Catcher