I suppose that it is sort of baseball normal to look at a young LHB/COF, without boomiing power, as a "platoon" guy. For example, Brett Gardner got 50 starts vs. RHP and just 13 vs. LHP in his first "full" year of '09. But he hit lefties and proved to be too valuable to platoon. I sort of suspect that is what the M's see in Gamel.
Take a look at this: If you take away his terrible-no good-ugly August (.161-.215-.218/BABIP of .173) then Gamel's seasonal line looks like this: .299-.344-.448. No kidding. If you take away Robbie Cano's worst month (July/.210-.279-.350/.214) his season line improves to .294-.350-.465.
Minus their worst months, you have .299-.344-.448 vs. .294-.350-.465. That is .792 OPS vs. .815, the difference being all in homers. OK, I know Gamel had a pretty amazing BABIP early in the season but Cano's .315 Sept/Oct. BA was fueled by a .383 BABIP. Players get hot because balls land on the grass not in the leather.
So until he doesn't, let's just assume that Gamel can hit. He did in '15 and '16 at AAA and he did last year, minus one atrocious month, in the bigs.
Platoon him? I can live with that. But the evidence suggests he's a player. BTW, one thing I really liked last year was his ability to adjust. Early in the season he struggled with chasing strike three uup and out of the zone. he adjusted. then pitchers simple grooved strike one, because he so frequently just took a pass on the first pitch. He adjusted. late in the year he showed the abiliity to drop the head of the bat on the inside stuff and drive it from the park. The guy fixed his issues and will likely continue to. He can play.
Go team.
Edit: Well I will be danged: I finished this note THEN I figured I had better go read the LL article that Doc referenced above. My goodness. Great minds must think alike. Either that or LL is as loony as me. We even used nearly the same terrible-no good line. And we both focused on his August-horribilus. I wish I had read their article before doing this note. I could have saved myself the time and the B-R research by just saying, "Ditto!"