Brewer Fanatic 2024 Offseason Top 20 Prospect - No. 4: Robert Gasser

[Spencer Michaelis]

Welcome back to Brewer Fanatic's 2024 top 20 prospect breakdown! In this edition, we will be taking a look at Robert Gasser. Gasser comes in as the fourth-best prospect in the system, as voted on and compiled by the Brewer Fanatic community.

Image courtesy of © Mark Hoffman-Imagn Images

4. Robert Gasser (Nashville Sounds, Milwaukee Brewers)

A second-round draft pick by the Padres in the 2021 draft, Gasser was in the midst of his first full season when the infamous Josh Hader trade went down at the trade deadline in 2022. He finished his Padres career at the High-A level, having thrown 90 1/3 innings for the Fort Wayne TinCaps. The Brewers decided that was plenty of experience at that level and assigned him to Double-A Biloxi to begin his Brewers career. Four starts later, Gasser and his 2.21 ERA and 11.5 strikeouts per nine innings were headed to Triple-A Nashville. Thst's where he would finish the 2022 campaign and where he spent all of 2023. He returned there to begin 2024 after battling some elbow issues in spring, and made three starts before being called up to make his MLB debut on May 10th.

What to Like:
To begin, Gasser has an athletic delivery, and because of that delivery, he releases the ball 4.96 feet off of the ground on average. Out of 193 lefties to throw at least 100 pitches in 2024, Gasser’s release height was the ninth-lowest. He does this while also generating well above-average extension, at 6.7 feet. It’s a very abnormal release point for hitters, and it helps all of his pitches play up.

Gasser has five pitches, and all five showed signs of being average or better offerings in his 28 innings with the big-league club. His sweeper was his most effective pitch and the pitch he threw the most often. After the sweeper, the order of usage went sinker, four-seam fastball, changeup, cutter.

Gasser’s sweeper grades out well by any metric, as the low-80s offering features three inches less drop than the average sweeper thrown by a southpaw. It also has above-average glove-side movement, as well as average velocity. Coming from that low release point, it’s an outlier of a pitch from lefties and the 34.5% whiff rate on a pitch that he threw 32% of the time is a clear sign of that. His comfort throwing it for strikes and for chases against right-handed hitters is also abnormal, and that makes it an uncomfortable pitch for both handednesses of hitter. Hitters only posted a .190 batting average against the sweeper and a .573 OPS. 

In MLB, Gasser sat in the 92-94 range and got up to 95 on the fastball at times. His low release height helps him generate an above-average -4.3 degree Vertical Approach Angle, which helps him get the ball above barrels. He didn’t get many whiffs on it during his MLB stint, but it’s the type of pitch that should generate more, as long as he’s spotting at the top of the zone or higher.

Since coming to the Brewers organization, Gasser had been mixing in his upper-80s cutter much more often than he had with the Padres. When he reached MLB, he dropped the usage significantly, instead relying more on the sinker and changeup than he had in Triple-A. However, the cutter still showed signs of being an effective pitch against right-handed hitters, especially when he can get it inside and on the hands of hitters.

His sinker was used far more often in MLB than in Triple-A, and it performed much better than it had over the last couple of seasons in the minors. It did a great job generating ground balls for Gasser, doing so at a 57.7% rate, leading to a .214 batting average against, and a .429 OPS against the pitch. With over 15 inches of run on the pitch, the shape is surprisingly close to mirroring the sweeper shape, other than the fact that it’s thrown 12-13 MPH harder.

The other pitch that made huge strides for Gasser was his changeup. He was able to get more separation between the changeup velocity and the fastballs he throws, which was helpful on its own. His command of the pitch was extremely impressive, and similar to the sinker, it was a great pitch for generating grounders in MLB. His 60% rate combined with an average exit velocity of 82.2 points to Gasser actually having some bad luck on this pitch as hitters batted .333 against it. 

Generally, Gasser’s command was fantastic in MLB, and it showed in his walk numbers, as well as the amount of soft contact he generated. Something he had struggled with at times in the minor leagues, seeing him walk less than a batter per nine innings was a great sign for him, even in a small sample.

What to Work On:
While the cutter was a really solid pitch for Gasser in the minors, and it did show signs of being effective in MLB, hitters did damage against it in a small sample. The 1.415 OPS against it was far and away the worst of any of Gasser's pitches. Batters hit the cutter in the air at a 70% clip and had an average exit velocity of 93.3 against it. While it has the ability to be a good counter pitch, he will need to throw it more effectively moving forward.

Though Gasser had an extremely strong start to his MLB career, there was one main ingredient missing. The swings and misses that Gasser had generated throughout his minor-league career were largely non-existent, save for the sweeper. Throughout his career in the minors, he had generated whiffs at a 28.1% rate. In his 28 MLB innings, that number was only 21.6%. His strikeout rate at Triple-A was also 28.1%, compared to the miniscule 14% rate he posted in MLB. 

Gasser could have a solid career generating soft contact and living off of that, but if he is to reach his ceiling, there will need to be more swing and miss involved. Some of this could be related to pitch-calling from Brewers catchers as they got used to calling games for him. We know he is capable of generating more whiffs. Whether he can or can not, could be the difference between him being a mid-rotation arm or a back of the rotation arm.

What’s next:
Gasser was in the midst of establishing himself as a rotation piece, and well on his way to graduating from this list, before he unfortunately had to undergo Tommy John surgery. He’s expected to miss the majority, if not the entirety of the 2025 season. While there isn’t an ideal type of surgery, Tommy John has arguably become more of an exact science than any other. Gasser should be able to return to his old form eventually. It’s more of a matter of when, than if. The Brewers will take anything they can get from him in 2025, but barring a setback or a surprise, Gasser should be expected to be a part of the 2026 rotation.

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What are your thoughts on Gasser? What are you hoping to see from him in the future? Let us know in the comments!

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[jesusoftheapes]

He was fun to watch until he got hurt .  Tobias Myers got his big break moment off this injury and while I am a huge Gasser fan I would not have traded Myers 2024 for Gassers.   I wish Gasser had worked his arm into shape instead of doing a surgery without a tear.     

I wish we had him in 2025 but that ship has sailed with a surgery .    I call this a huge failure by the Brewers not to have caught this issue much earlier in Gasser's career and made him work it into shape so this did not happen.    Time will tell but the Hader deal sure seems to get stinky each time we loose another piece we traded him for and the years off Gassers Brewers career cannot be ignored.