danzig6767

Dude, relax. Almonte could be hitting .400 for all we know in AAA. When he becomes the next Nelson Cruz, you can call them stupid. He doesn't need to be Nelson Cruz. He needs to actually be able to play good defense and hit occasionally, which Almonte and Kotsay can't do. Boggs can provide some pop from both sides of the plate, and play good defense. That's what we need off the bench in a backup outfielder. That's the point I'm making. It makes no sense to have guys like Almonte and Kotsay on the roster, who we know can't play the field, and are average hitters at their absolute best. I'd rather give a guy like Boggs a shot. At worst, he can play well in the OF, and probably hit better than the .100 Almonte is hitting. He also would be a pinch-hitting option against right and left-handed pitching, and has some speed unlike Almonte and Kotsay.Ditto It truly is baffling to me as to why Boggs isn't on the team? I'd love someone to ask Melvin to name just one single thing that Almonte is better at than Boggs? On top of the fact that Boggs is a switch hitter as you mentioned and there already have been a few instances where we had to put Kotsay or Counsell in there to pinch hit vs a lefty. The same Kotsay who hit .000 vs lefties in 25 at bats last season.

Hmmm I know that WAR means wins above replacement, but have no clue at all how FIP is calculated. So are they basically saying that Wolf's 4.17 ERA was lucky and that he really should have given up more runs, thus it lessens the dollar value that they placed on the year he had? In general though, i have to believe in today's baseball that a starting pitcher who throws 215 innings with a decent ERA like 4.17 has to be worth significantly more than 3 million dollars given that pretty much all to nearly all teams would be absolutely thrilled to get 215 innings at that ERA for only three million out of a 4th-5th starter.

I hate Yuni as much as everyone else and that wasn't a good throw in the 10th inning, but it wasn't way off line. Am i alone in thinking that the vast majority of other firstbaseman who aren't short with short arms would likely have caught that ball?

FanGraphs includes the dollar value on all player pages. Wolf was valued at $3M last season by their formula. Thanks That surprises me. I would think 215 innings at a 4.17 ERA which is decent would have a value quite a bit higher than only 3 million dollars. What am i missing given the dearth of starting pitching overall in baseball?

Narveson had some untimely walks in that third inning, but other than that, i thought he pitched well again. The two hits in that inning were simple grounders to second that resulted in hits because Weeks was shifted up the middle. I don't recall a single hard hit ball off Narveson all game. In fact, i don't remember the Nationals really hitting a single ball hard off any of our pitchers tonight. Four runs on walks, an error, a SAC fly, and two grounders in the 3rd inning that would have been outs if Weeks was playing where he normally is without a shift.

His strike zone is the size of a wallet

Not when you're hitting in front of Braun or can steal bases at a 85% clip 85% against a lefty? It took a perfect throw to just barely get Gomez, so I still don't think it was a bad move. He probably get's into 2B there 95% of the time, so 5% of the time it will be called stupid. I was ok with it also. It just happened to be a former pitcher playing in CF who make a perfect throw to get Gomez b a hair.

Yea, and Boggs is hitting great so far in AAA. Now will face a lefty in the 9th and all we have is lefties on the bench. Doug has really irritated me with the bench he's put together.

When they work it looks brilliant, nights like tonight they look stupid.

I'm not interested much in studying sabermetrics, but i have read on here a few times where i believe it was fangraphs that puts a rough dollar value on the season a player had. What was Wolf basically worth last year?

Yep The numerous defensive shifts has often worked out as the coaches planned, which in turn made Bentacourt look better because multiple balls ended up being hit right at him instead of him not being able to range over for the balls up the middle. Over the course of the season though, his lack of range will be more apparent to those who so far aren't noticing it as much.

Even if that is the case that Doug is trying to trade one of the two catchers, neither guy is close to being good enough to fetch much of anything useful in a trade. I put myself in the shoes of another GM and Melvin calls offering Kottaras or Nieves. So even if i might have a very slight bit of interest, if Doug asks for anything of value, i tell him thanks for calling, but i have a pizza to order and have to get going.

I think it's pretty clear that Braun will never become a 100 plus walk guy like Prince is, Ryan likes to swing the bat to much and he has success sometimes on pitches out of the zone because of his above average plate coverage. I could though eventually see him becoming a guy who walks about 70-75 times a year. Given the high average he hits for all the time, that would likely translate into an OBP of around .370-.400, depending how high above .300 he hit.

If he can have one of his .690 OPS type of years, that's not absolutely brutal for a shortstop. There were about a 10-12 guys last year who posted a sub.700 OPS at shortstop last season. I'm not saying that Yuni isn't a really bad hitter, but considering that he's a SS, it's not as if he's a lone extreme example of bad hitting for his position. If he was a quality defensive player, i'd be reasonably accepting of how he hits. It's just that he sucks both at the plate and in the field that brings the wrath. For me at least, i'm more bothered by his defense. Our offense is good enough that we should be able to score runs with a lot of Betancourt 0-4 or 1-4 nights, along with some doubles and homers by him sprinkled in. I get more frustrated seeing balls hit to the left/right of him that a quality SS has a decent shot of creating an out, but Yuni barely even bothers trying to field the ball, much less create an out or a close play at 1st/2nd base. We haven't seen this magnified much yet, but there certainly will end up being numerous situations like say guys on 2nd and 3rd with two outs in a close game where a ball is hit up the middle and a quality SS would make a nice play to end the inning. With Betancourt though, it'll roll right through to the outfield for a two run single and he won't get called for an error, but it will still cost the team two critical runs.

That's been my thought watching him play defense. If the ball is to the left/right of him, it looks like he's moving in sand/mud or as if he's wearing 10 pound ankle weights. His bat i'm less concerned about because quite a few shortstops are poor hitters. The problem is that most bad hitting shortstops are good defensively, kinda like how Gomez in CF makes up at least partially for his horrible bat by playing high quality defense. With Yuni, we get bent over the sink on both offense and defense except for the bit of pop in his bat.

I was on youtube and gave Atmosphere another listen and found this tune, i like it

Gomez should be playing, we need his defense so i don't have an issue with his playing time if the choice is between him and Kotsay. It is a bit troubling though that Roenicke has been around baseball as long as he has, yet he keeps batting Gomez 2nd in front of arguably the best 3-4 tandem in the league based almost entirely on a .300 spring batting average where he refused to walk as he's always refused to do. That sounds something like Davey Lopes would do. Oh well, Hart will be back soon and that certainly should end the Gomez batting 2nd head scratcher. It does though make me think/wonder that Roenicke simply isn't like some managers who are more stat based in their thinking over gut feelings, and those type of managers wouldn't need to even think twice about a strict platoon of Morgan and Gomez.

I really want to like Roenicke given that he seems to have struck a chord with the players. We are only 11 games into the season so i want to avoid making many sweeping generalizations as to how he'll do things over the course of the season, but given that he's continued batting Gomez 2nd, it does make me at least question though how much credence he puts into stats, particularly OBP. If that is the case, it could make him be one of those type of managers who simply doesn't believe in fairly strict platoons even if the numbers say it makes the most logical sense, especially given that both guys provide plenty of speed/range in CF. Both can also bunt and run the bases, things Roenicke seems to value a lot. In fact, they are very similar players except for that Morgan gets on base significantly better and Gomez has a much better arm in CF. So if i had to bet, once Hart gets back or even say a month after that, we won't see a fairly strict Morgan/Gomez platoon in CF. Instead, we'll see Roenicke filling the CF spot from night to night more on his gut feelings, meaning Gomez seeing more starts vs righthanders than should really happen.

Homer? Saying good pitching wins games is just common sense. The pitching won't always be great but over the course of a season it will be consistently better. And Gomez is more than a defensive replacement. There are teams with guys worse than him starting. It's just that people have grown to hate Gomez and point out everything he does wrong and are all over him everygame. He can go 2 for 4 and people will complain he flew out on a first pitch. He may not be an elite player but he is far from useless. As was said above, he would be much better suited in the 8th slot and having Morgan hit 2nd for the next couple weeks until Hart returns. But he is nowhere near as bad as most would like to think. Once you show one stat proving that Gomez is more than useless I will believe it.If you've watch baseball long enough and don't see the real value in having a good defensive CF, i don't know what anyone can say to you. Gomez plays almost entirely because of his defensive abilities. Obviously, it would be more ideal to have a good defensive CF that can also hit good, but there aren't a ton of those guys and if you don't have one, that can't be acquired easily or cheaply. Since Melvin smartly traded for Morgan, we now have two good defensive CF on the roster and thus shouldn't be forced to play him every day. So once Hart comes back, if Roenicke isn't a mix of stubborn and stupid, he can platoon Morgan/Gomez in CF which allows the team to have a good defensive CF out there each night and mitigates slightly that Nyger struggles so bad vs lefties as evidenced by his career .569 OS vs lefties and .757 OPS vs righties. Granted, Gomez hits like crap regardless of what hand a pitcher throws with, but it's a little better than Morgan vs lefties while keeping Gomez sharp in the field in case Morgan got hurt.

That he'd have a stretch of 40 bad PAs at some point in time? Not sure who wouldn't have seen that coming. Brewers start 0-4: SEASON OVER McGehee struggles in first 11 games of the season: HE SUCKS Brewers offense is good: IT CAN'T CONTINUE WORDS!!! Yeah, there's always gonna be people who overreact about everything. There's a reason to say that guys like Kotsay, Gomez, and Betancourt suck, because they came in being terrible, and we expected it. Guys like McGehee have proven they can hit, and deserve a bigger sample that 40 PA's. I think more of the reason the other 3 I mentioned are criticized is because we have Morgan and Counsell sitting on the bench not getting starts they should be getting. I think people will calm down once Hart returns, and Morgan starts platooning with Gomez in CF. The weaknesses in out lineup will be more masked then, because we won't have 3-4 bad hitters in the lineup at once. If we just have Betancourt in there, it won't be as big of a deal if we have Morgan and Hart in there. We'll be fine, I'm not worried at all. McGehee will snap out of it, all players have slumps. Roenicke will soon realize that Gomez sucks, and when Hart comes back Kotsay will be on the bench. Betancourt will get his starts, because Counsell can't play regularly. We will probably see Counsell get more than 1 start a week eventually, but like I said before, we won't notice Betancourt as much when Hart and Morgan are in there and McGehee is hitting again.Plus, while Betancourt is a complete out machine, he at least offers some pop for a shortstop. He's not an Adam Everett type of out machine SS who either makes outs or only hit singles. Yuni can drive the ball some as he did tonight. I have a bigger issue with his lack of range at shortstop than i have with his hitting because quite a few shortstops in baseball are bad or very mediocre hitters. It's just that not many or any offer his mix of bad hitting and terrible defense.

I don't know if i'd say he's being more selective when you consider that he walked 114 times last year, the most of any player in baseball. He walked 110 times in 2009. Prince has always been very patient and selective at the plate, it's one of his biggest strengths. His K numbers have also been incredibly consistent when you consider the last three years he's struck out 134/138/138 times. Come the end of the year i'd expect that he'll have 100 plus walks and a 100 plus strikeouts. For whatever reason though, his OPS has fluctuated significantly every other year. 1.013 .879 1.014 .871 So if he sticks to that trend, he should be in for a big year.

This is a true "homer" post. Look at the stats man...if this pitching holds up...World Champs for the Crew!, but I am trying to be realistic. How does Gomez serve a purpose...as a 9th inning defensive replacement? Gomez is a very good defensive CF, it's not his fault that the manager for some truly baffling reason has continued to bat him 2nd in the order. Until Hart gets back, the problem could easily be solved by playing Morgan in RF whenever a RH pitcher starts and bat Morgan 2nd with Gomez 8th. Then once Hart gets back, platoon Morgan and Gomez in CF because Nyger really struggles vs lefties. When Morgan plays, i'd be fine with either Morgan or Hart batting 2nd. If it's Morgan, we have Hart and McGehee following Prince. Then when a lefty starts, put Hart in the two hole and hit Gomez 8th. If Roenicke doesn't want to flip around the two hole spot, simply bat Hart there and just platoon Morgan/Gomez. Either way, once Hart gets back, it will end Roenicke's fascination with watching Kotsay weakly ground out over and over. McGehee will eventually start to hit. Roenicke i'm assuming will have to soon end this foolishness of batting Gomez 2nd. Our offense will be productive and be a team strength.

Yuni has a little pop for a shortstop and can make the plays on balls right at him, but it has been painful watching him try to make any plays going to the right/left of him. I'm somewhat skeptical of defensive metrics as a whole, but watching him play clearly confirms what the stats say about his lack of range. Those balls he can't get to aren't tallied as errors, but some are outs that he turns into hits compared to quality defensive shortstops. I could live with how he hits if the guy wasn't so lacking in range at the most important defensive position on the field.

Quite baffling isn't it? I guess our manager loves all those weak grounders that Kotsay provides.

Gomez should be in the lineup, just batting 8th with Morgan in RF batting second.