bill hAll Star

There were a lot of other teams with lock-down bullpens that didn't even get into the playoffs. The 3rd worst bullpen in the league according to this in the regular season won the World Series. http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=rel&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2014&month=0&season1=2014&ind=0&team=0,ts&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0 Point is: I'd love a good bullpen. If you get to the playoffs and if your bullpen is locked in, it is a massive advantage for you. Problem is, if you have limited resources devote money and prospects to it, you may not be a good 162 game team. You could also strengthen your bullpen at the trade deadline. The Royals had it all go right for them last year, so while it is something to learn from, I wouldn't over-compensate.

I don't want Coke because I know that Roenicke will mis-use him at a certain point in the year.

Lind is a plus 1B at the plate as long as we have a RH platoon. Same with Scooter at 2B. I wouldn't mind Sardinas facing all RHP at 2B and spelling SS/(3B?) if they feel he is ready for the MLB. A 2B platoon-mate that is RH can be very cheap but I'm not willing to be happy that Scooter is our 2B unless we have a platoon mate. I hope that platoon mate can play extra positions. Scooter at full-time 2B is screaming for a subpar season at the plate. Let's not waste half of the season finding out that he can't hit lefties.

The Seahawks' with 5 minutes to go.

I prefer Parra to Aoki greatly. Aoki is not a great defender and has neutral splits. Parra will be facing all righties where he excels and can defend well at every position. Worth the upgrade.

Do not want to go anywhere near Chris Johnson. He's basically a AAAA/MLB borderline replacement guy.

I'm almost for sure wrong. I was just throwing an idea out there and saw a Brewers blog discussing how the A's, Brewers, Jays, and Nats were going to be active today. Completely throwing that up against the wall, but there is something to the idea that Oakland, unless they are confident in several AA/AAA guys, will be dealing for a LH hitting infielder.

Yeah, that wasn't as feasible now that I look at it. Brewers would have to be taking on payroll there and Zobrist cannot shoulder as much of the load at SS as that would require. Maybe Zobrist 33%, Sogard 33%, Semien 33% at SS if that trade happened. Oakland needs/wants another LH infielder, though.

They must have one more LH or switch infielder coming in, you'd think. Actually, Scooter for Clippard makes a lot of sense except for the salary part. Well, it doesn't make sense to me, but there are only a handful of MLB LH infielders and I can almost guarantee Oakland is going after them.

So are we going to get a manager that realizes that it is 2015 and that "roles" will eventually kill your team? How many more "8th inning guys" that have bad splits do we have to have before he realizes it? Loe is the best example of this. Great pitcher to face RH batters when you're in a jam and need a grounder. Let's make him the 8th inning guy! Will Smith might have been overused, but part of that has to do with the fact that he had to be the "8th inning guy" played a part in that. Oh, and by the way, his splits were an .872 OPS vs. RH hitters and .516 vs. LH hitters. Case in point: Stick to your guns. Don't wish away weaknesses and think it'll get by with a "role" or by giving it the ol' college try. And yes, Maddon seems to get it. He understands that he should just platoon hitters instead of wishing them to be good hitters in situations that they are likely to fail. A lot of that has to do with Friedman/Melvin, though. Melvin, in going with a top-heavy lineup really just has a "regular 8" for Roenicke, but within that he still over-uses the roles. Maddon did not, but Friedman may have had his hand on his shoulder a little bit...and Epstein will do the same.

Are we willing to risk a decent set of ABs this year to figure it out? I feel as though many on here are much too confident that he'll just "figure it out" with extra practice. Are we willing to find out in August that he's still OPSing .550 against LHP? They spent half the season trying to see if Will Smith was an "8th inning guy" (I hate that about any manager) and found out the hard way halfway through the year that he should be a LOOGY. To be fair, he was excellent against both hands for a while, but the point is that you normally just trust the numbers on this stuff because eventually when you try to pound a square peg into a round hole it will eventually blow up in your face.

Somebody that struggles to muster a .650 OPS in any lower level is going to be a liability in that situation at the MLB level. He absolutely could show a bit of improvement and can't be any worse if he gets more of a sample to at least squeak some doubles down the line in there. That said, I can't see him putting up more than a .600 OPS against LHP. I just don't want to give up that many at bats over the course of a season. I realize that Weeks was an imperfect platoon mate because you had a guy that only played 2B and not a utility guy there, but we need a decent utility RH hitter. Is that Gomez? If that is, then fine. This team doesn't have room for error. Giving away a free out on almost all of ABs from 1/3 of ABs from a spot in the order is not a good way to improve that situation.

OPS vs. LHP (Plate Appearances) 2010 A Ball: .851 (125) - Note, he hit only 1 HR against LHP. 2011 A+ Ball: .667 (164) 2012 AA Ball: .646 (167) 2013 AAA Ball: .592 (190) 2013-2014 MLB: .291 (this is OPS, not batting average) (83) So he hit lefties well with minimal power in 125 single-A plate appearances. He's been horrendous everywhere else, unless you want to count an OK batting average with no walks or power in A+ ball.

Parra is an exceptional defender that can play all 3 positions and has a .760 career OPS vs. RH pitchers. Clark could be a solid platoon bat as well but Parra has a fairly key role.

I'm extremely concerned about a platoon-mate for Scooter. Scooter will improve, but he has been horrible for his entire professional career now against left-handed pitching. It's sabotage of your own team if you throw him out there against lefties. On a team with little room for error, throwing a guy out there because he'll give it the ol' college try even though we have 6 years of data that shows it will be a massive failure tells me that we don't have management competent to compete in baseball in 2015.

Do we have a tea leaves reading on if we're *really* going to play Scooter out there every day? If not, who is the platoon mate? I know that Weeks is technically still out there but I feel like he'll catch on with a contender somewhere or maybe the Yankees.

I do agree with the Vogt assessment. I failed to mention that in my post and I did want to that he is . Part of their imperfect situation is the amount of moving parts it has. Last year, come playoff time, 2 or 3 of their platoons were shredded with injury. Norris, for his career, is a .619 OPSer vs. RHP. Norris did improve that mark last year to a nice .699 OPS, but Phegley and Soto both are .750-.800 guys against LHP. That doesn't match Norris' .850 in that split, but it's not bad. The key to all of this is the lefty side being Vogt. I also wonder if they have a LH batter in AAA they are counting on? Bryan Anderson (who I see they just outrighted). As for their pitching staff, I'd say they have 8 guys that could be a #2 through #4 on most pitching staffs. They have good organizational depth. Nolin, Gravemann, Bassitt, etc. not to mention Parker and Griffin returning (do they still have both?) are all in AA/AAA and are guys that can probably put up a mid/high 3s ERA in that park if called upon.

Agree that the Soto/Vogt platoon will be very good. The definition of a platoon player includes the idea that they are flawed at heart. As soon as the perceived value of a player like Norris goes up (though he's not horrible vs. RHP) you deal him away for better value and create another platoon of flawed players To the "deepest team in the league" I would almost agree in some ways. Switch hitters with positional flexibility help their cause greatly. On any given day, they have 7 active hitters that are "plus" for their position against the handedness of pitcher on the mound. They then have excellent options off the bench should the other team choose to switch pitchers. They don't have any stud pitchers, but they do have about 8 of MLB quality. As usual, they are built for the regular season. If they didn't blow the WC game, last year maybe was their year. The middling/poor pitchers that LAA/BAL threw out there against KC would have been ripe for the A's flawed hitters.

Over Bonifacio's career he has a .721 OPS vs. lefties. That's what matters to me. He's a platoon-mate with Scooter and could platoon with Parra if Davis or Braun got hurt. Against RHP his value goes down.

I wonder if they'll just keep Zobrist for the last year of his deal. They're a team that loves to platoon so you don't need a 5th OF or extra backup IF. They'll platoon every position but 3B to their heart's content and have Zobrist able to start at a position that might not have the ideal platoon guy that day. It's inevitable that they'll suffer some injuries as well and he'll be thrust into a more everyday role. I think an underrated thing that Oakland and TB have done is get positional flexibility/depth. Not just have good starters or platoon guys, but the ability to slide guys around. Reddick and Moss go down last year? They can still move a plus platoon hitter in Vogt to the outfield. When the Brewers lose players with their current lack of organizational depth, they are left with an uninspiring platoon or a ST-invite washed-up vet to fill the role.

BrewCrewDue, you're forgetting about Dickerson, who was much more of a hitting prospect than Blackmon absolutely destroying RHP at Coors. So much so that they probably will play Dickerson every day because he was eventually so good last year. I'd imagine that they'll go with Blackmon/Stubbs platoon, CarGo, and Dickerson across the OF. They had Barnes as the RH side for Dickerson or whoever was the LH side last year and he can platoon off-and-on with CarGo/Dickerson. Sidenote: Drew Stubbs, at Coors, against a lefty might have been the greatest platoon split ever. He was basically Bonds at home vs. lefties with nearly a 1.300 OPS (yes, really). He was pretty good at home vs. righties (.844) and AAA fodder on the road.

Since about 2011/2012 when Asdrubal's bat decided to cool off, he and Espinosa are close to a wash. I'd still probably take Cabrera but not for a price increase.

I think if you just say, "give me the top 10 spenders this year" that the numbers will tell you that. However, it is a cyclical thing. Being a top 10 spender absolutely helps you win. It's just that by the nature of the beast that it's going to come back to bite you at some point. However, you'll get many swings of the bat at a championship whereas a team like the Brewers will get 1 swing for the prize and a very shrewd team like Oakland or Tampa Bay will get 2-3 swings. In a decade, a big spender might get 5-7 and they'll be big ones. Look at this year's 2014's top 10 spenders. Everyone laughs at Philly's management of late. It's true that the contract for Howard and not dealing away their aging players was known to be silly. That said, they have a World Series from a lot of the guys they are paying and a few other shots at it. Yankees are paying for theirs as well. Red Sox are up there. Tigers and Rangers are top 10 spenders and have probably been the 2 "best" overall teams other than San Francisco in the past 5 years but fell a pitch short. So everyone sees the tweet from some baseball writer that the game is level because 3 of the top 10 payrolls were horrendously bad but about 18 fanbases from the bottom 20 would trade out their past decade for Philly, Texas, or Detroit's (save the heartache of losing several World Series). Even Boston is top 10 and "struggled" last year. I haven't crunched the numbers but I bet if you take the top 10 payrolls in 2014, you're going to have like 70% of the World Series participants and deep playoff runs in the span of 2005-2014. The Cardinals, A's of late, and Tampa Bay are going to be the only threat to that number and they are probably the best-run teams in baseball. EDIT: I crunched said numbers and if you use 2014's payroll you have this: -50% of WS participants were top payrolls in 2014. -In the past 10 years, 7 of the WS winners were top 10 2014 payrolls. 2 were the Cardinals (at 13th in payroll) and the last one was the White Sox exactly 10 years ago who finally dropped out of "big spenders" in 2013 or so and are now spending again. -I'll make this somewhat arbitrary looking at that last bullet point since CWS and HOU have blown it up recently, but let's cut it to 9 years and say "top 10 payrolls plus St. Louis." In said span, we have 18 World Series teams. 15 of them were top 10 payrolls in 2014 or the St. Louis Cardinals.

You can never have enough lefty 1B/OF guys. He's not expected to be a MLB guy anyways but as your 2nd or 3rd call in AAA he seems serviceable. Doug may over-compensate here or one could also say he was behind the curve on the platoon game the last few years. You can find RH guys anywhere. I'm assuming Luc/Jimenez fill the RH side of the 1B platoon or they find some other cheap option, but they are fine with righties.

Absolutely. Maybe they should notice that an OK-hitting backup catcher was traded for Middlebrooks and take a look at Middlebrooks' value. He may very well end up with Mark Reynolds-type production but less homers that will look even worse since he is playing at Petco. He will probably end up at .220/.275/.400 in a neutral stadium.