Evan Gattis

James Evan Gattis (born August 18, 1986) is an American former professional baseball designated hitter and catcher. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Atlanta Braves and Houston Astros. Gattis has also earned the nickname of or The White Bear, due to his raw power capabilities when playing for the Venezuelan Professional Baseball League. While with Atlanta, he played catcher and occasionally left field.

Gattis was a premier amateur baseball player in the Dallas–Fort Worth area through high school. However, anxiety and substance abuse led him to abandon his scholarship to Texas A&M University. After wandering around the Western United States for four years, he returned to baseball, and was drafted by the Braves in 2010.

After playing in minor league baseball for the Braves, Gattis made the team's Opening Day roster in 2013. Receiving playing time with Brian McCann on the disabled list, Gattis won the National League Rookie of the Month Award for both April and May 2013. He became the Braves' primary catcher in 2014, but was traded to the Astros before the 2015 season. He later won the 2017 World Series with the Astros over the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Early life Evan Gattis was born in Dallas, Texas, on August 18, 1986. He was raised in Farmers Branch, Texas, and began playing baseball at the age of six. He attended high schools in the Dallas area, including R. L. Turner High School, Forney High School, and Bishop Lynch High School, in order to play for specific coaches.

College career Gattis enrolled at Seminole State College, a junior college in Seminole, Oklahoma, after receiving a recruitment phone call from the team's coach. Gattis redshirted as a freshman and played for half a season in 2006.

Gattis's first job after quitting baseball was as a parking valet in Dallas. He then visited his sister in Boulder, Colorado, and decided to reside there. He sold his truck and worked in a pizza parlor and as a ski-lift operator at the Eldora Mountain Resort. and to the Conference's post-season first team. and won the SAL batting title. With Brian McCann starting for the Braves and top prospect Christian Bethancourt regarded as an excellent catcher, Gattis was shifted to left field. After the regular season, he played in the Venezuelan Winter League, where he batted .303 with 16 home runs and a .595 slugging percentage in 53 games, leading the league in home runs and slugging percentage. With a 19-for-53 (.358) performance in the Grapefruit League and McCann starting the season on the disabled list, the Braves added Gattis to their Opening Day roster to share catching duties with Gerald Laird.

Atlanta Braves (2013–2014)

On April 3, 2013, Gattis made his major league debut. He recorded his first hit as a major leaguer, a home run off of Roy Halladay, in his second at bat. He batted .333 in his first eight games, also homering off of Stephen Strasburg. Gattis was named the National League (NL) Rookie of the Month for April 2013, in which he batted .250 and led all major league rookies with six home runs, a .566 slugging percentage (SLG), 16 RBIs, and 43 total bases.

Following the return of McCann from the disabled list and an injury to outfielder Jason Heyward, Gattis began to play left field for the Braves. Gattis was again named NL Rookie of the Month for the month of May, after batting .303 with a .362 on-base percentage and a .683 SLG for the month, while leading all rookies with 16 RBIs and tying Jedd Gyorko for most home runs as a rookie with six. Gattis became the first rookie to win consecutive Rookie of the Month awards since Heyward in 2010. Gattis was on the disabled list from June 19 through July 14 with a strained oblique muscle.

With a 5-for-36 (.139) slump in August and McCann catching regularly, Gattis began to lose playing time. The Braves sent Gattis to the Gwinnett Braves of the Class AAA International League on August 31 so that he could play regularly. On September 8 against Cole Hamels, Gattis recorded the longest home run of 2013, calculated at , which was also the longest home run in the history of Citizens Bank Park. Later in that same game Gattis hit another 400+ foot home run off of Hamels after flying out to the warning track in a previous at bat. Hamels was quoted as saying "I felt like I was throwing a golf ball and he had a driver. He's probably going to be in the strongest man competition." He ended the season with a .243 batting average, 21 home runs and 65 RBIs. He played a total of 47 games in left field and 38 at catcher. #tag:ref|Finished behind Fernández, Yasiel Puig, Shelby Miller, Hyun-jin Ryu, Julio Teherán, and Gyorko, and tied with Nolan Arenado. With McCann leaving the Braves to sign as a free agent with the New York Yankees, On April 21, Gattis hit his first career walk-off home run, a 2-run shot off of Miami Marlins reliever Arquimedes Caminero in the 10th inning to give the Braves a 4–2 victory. In June, he had a 20-game hitting streak. He went on the disabled list on June 30 with a bulging disc in his upper back, and returned to the Braves' lineup on July 21. Gattis hit the game-winning home run, his 22nd of the season, against the Miami Marlins in the top of the 10th on September 6, 2014. This would give him a new career high and make him the first Braves catcher to hit 20 or more home runs in his rookie and sophomore seasons.

During the 2014–15 offseason, the Braves traded Heyward with the intention of shifting Gattis to left field, with Bethancourt at catcher.

Houston Astros (2015–2018)

The Braves traded Gattis and James Hoyt to the Houston Astros for Mike Foltynewicz, Andrew Thurman, and Rio Ruiz on January 14, 2015. Gattis said he was a fan of the Texas Rangers as a youth and not the Astros, but also said it is a "good environment" in Houston. During the 2015 season, Gattis hit 27 home runs in a career-high 604 plate appearances, spending most of the season as the Astros' primary designated hitter. He also recorded 11 triples, despite entering the 2015 season with one career triple and having a 64th percentile sprint speed according to Statcast. He became the first major leaguer to log at least 10 triples without a stolen base in one season since Athletics infielder Jerry Lumpe in 1962.

Gattis lost approximately during the 2015–16 offseason by focusing on his nutrition and working with a personal trainer. He started only 11 games in left field in 2015, none at catcher, and 136 at designated hitter. The Astros planned to play Gattis in the field more for the 2016 season, including left field, first base, and his original position of catcher. Eligible for salary arbitration, the Astros and Gattis agreed on a one-year contract on February 16, 2016. The contract paid Gattis $3.3 million for the 2016 season, with a $5.2 million club option for the 2017 season. Gattis underwent hernia surgery on February 9, 2016, causing him to miss spring training. He was activated in April 2016, having missed seven regular season games due to the operation. In his first 20 games of 2016, he batted .203 with a home run and seven RBIs. He was optioned to the Corpus Christi Hooks of the Class AA Texas League on May 7, 2016, in order to transition back into a catcher. He was recalled on May 18, and started at catcher the next day.

The Astros exercised their $5.2 million club option on Gattis's contract for the 2017 season. In 2017, Gattis played 84 games with a .263 batting average, 12 home runs, and 55 RBIs. The Astros finished the 2017 regular season with a 101-61, first in AL West, and won the 2017 World Series over the Los Angeles Dodgers. Gattis's major contribution to the Astros' championship run was his solo homer in the fourth inning of Game 7 of the ALCS off of CC Sabathia to help the Astros advance to the World Series. The Astros won the World Series in a deciding 7 games against the Los Angeles Dodgers, giving Gattis his first championship title.

Gattis became a free agent after the 2018 season. He announced on October 22, 2019, that he was no longer pursuing baseball opportunities. In a March 27, 2020, podcast with former teammate Eric O'Flaherty, Gattis announced he was done playing professionally. In a second appearance on the same podcast, Gattis stated that the sign stealing scandal that took place while he played for Houston "obviously cheated baseball and cheated fans." He has also stated that while he was an advocate of the system, he also believed they did not do anything wrong because they believed other teams were doing so.

Personal life Gattis married longtime girlfriend Kimberly Waters on January 14, 2017, in Frisco, Texas.