Jim French Stepstool

I've been beating the drum for awhile now that Anderson should be entrenched at 3B, but with Urias inching his way back & Miller performing at a high level that isn't in the cards.

Since he's still only 26, left-handed & a former 1st-round pick, no we really can't. That doesn't mean you aren't right.

Absolutely, you don't use TT to run for Winker because you want to move him out to RF & bring Anderson in to play 3B. I'm sure he would've done that even if Tellez didn't reach base. But he still could've gotten a little more juice running Brosseau for Winker.

Running for Tellez in the 9th while not running for Winker 2 batters earlier was a little strange to me. But it worked. It hit me tonight......Wiemer reminds me an awful lot of Gorman Thomas. Not the Bambi's Bombers or Wallbangers Thomas, but the unestablished one from '75-76 who played part-time, struck out a ton & hit under .200 but just started to show the power stroke. This more modern version has a lot more in the toolkit though. Looking forward to the day the game starts to slow down for him while at the plate.

I suppose Megill is one of those guys who will keep getting chances to show he can throw secondary stuff for strikes. He actually did an acceptable job of it Monday night but was victimized by the dunker to right. Nice bounceback tonight for Peguero.

In a word, no. If he settles in & really goes on a hot streak in Biloxi I'd be fine with him getting 3-4 weeks in AAA to finish the season. But even spending the entire season in Biloxi wouldn't bother me, if that were to happen. Let's not forget.............19.

The guys who may have a future here (Gasser, Small) are having command issues & Gasser would a require 40-man roster move anyway, which I suspect they don't want to do. That leaves the Boushley, Junk type promotion and frankly I'd rather see them roll the dice with Teheran for whatever time this is needed.

The injuries & lack of consistent performance is a much bigger problem than any real or percieved lack of talent IMO. Whatever someone thinks the talent level is, are they playing as well as they can given that level? No. And I'm not talking about playing over their heads, either. When they struggle, the baseball IQ of the hitters seems to go south as well, making it that much tougher to recover. Still, injuries are the main culprit. In the 2023 NL Central, you need to give it much more time.

Right now, absolutely. The starting pitching was the basket they put their eggs in, which is smart. When you have 7 or 8 you think you can rely on to various degrees & half of them are missing at the same time, you're in trouble. I think you can also hang your hat on the defensive performance on most days, provided people are in the spots that maximize their ability. But when the rotation becomes a revolving M.A.S.H. unit & Burnes underperforms it's tough to cover for that.

One of my favorite pastimes in a game like tonite is listening to the announcers flexing their justification & lipstick-on-a-pig muscles. Fortunately BA was in the booth tonite as he's a savant at it. What I learned this evening is that maybe Burnes is feeling the pressure of being a staff ace with all the injuries. That might actually be true but boy, if it is what a bad reason. My favorite was "He gave up 4 home runs tonight, but they WERE all solo shots" Breezing through the first two hitters & then back-to-back walks to get to the #5 hitter (who I believe was homerless on the season) was interesting to me. I think it screams lack of confidence for whatever reason. And of course he gets taken deep four times afterward which only fuels it. Even in the 6 shutout innings vs KC, four walks. Just very odd. Not that it makes a difference in a game like this but the ABs have gotten better. Anderson took the night off offensively & Contreras swinging 3-0 in the fourth was horrible: but you scored two & on another night the same ABs might've gotten you 4 or so. But obviously what was supposed to be the strength of the team, right now isn't.

Good points, but I'm looking at it from the standpoint of run prevention because, well, it's what I do😛. He's by far our best third baseman IMO. We may not have won Sundays' game if he wasn't at third in the final 2 innings. And I actually have no problem rolling with Turang most of the time. Having said all this, I'm sure you'll see him in RF some.

I wonder if that eventually leads to Anderson settling in in RF. I'd understand it as he has the tools to play there but I really like him at 3B.

Guess I mis-judged Varland. I really liked the way he looked early on. To go from there to the point where he clears waivers, never saw that coming.

If those are my only two options I would too. But you're not factoring in the runner scoring from third, which happens a lot more than the detractors of the strategy think. Not you, but someone earlier in the thread said the next time it works will be the first time. Seriously? Miller is a fast runner. Franco had to move, take a short hop & make a fairly off-balance throw. He did. It happens. With one out it's a pretty standard strategy everywhere unless the runner on 3rd has a piano on his back.

My fear is that this eventually affects the pen. I looked at the rotation going into the season & thought we had a real good chance to get many more outings of 7 innings than what you normally see these days, occasionally even 7+. Case in point yesterday. Peralta walks back-to-back hitters in the 4th with a 3 run lead. Not only does that eventually tie the game but what was a very tidy pitch count gets flushed right down the toilet. I feel this BP is good enough to compete successfully but not if the parade of starts where guys are at 90-100 pitches by the 5th inning continues. I thought going a little deeper into games was going to be a hallmark of this staff. Of course Woodruff being out hurts that.

Run prevention. It has to be a cornerstone. Too bad Freddy had the horrible 4th (2 walks) after being up 3-0. Shows how much maturing he still has to accomplish. That kept you from being up maybe 4-5 runs & not having to use your late-inning guys, thus potentially affecting tomorrow.

Contact play. Runner out at home, batter/runner takes 2nd due to the rundown. There's a lot of complaints about the contact play, but with one out it's almost always the way to go. You force the INF to make a play, and if it's something like what happened today it's the runners' responsibility to hang himself up long enough to put the batter/runner in scoring position. In most instances I believe it's the right thing to do. I think it's one of those deals when folks remember all the times it DOES'NT work.

Without delving into the statistical calculus, I think he's gotten away from consciously looking to go to the opposite field like he was doing earlier in the season. There's a point where looking oppo eventually leads to you getting pitches to pull, but he hadn't gotten to that point yet where he should've changed his approach (if indeed that's what he's doing).

Strange thing about Miller is he has versatility, but that doesn't mean he's particularly good defensively. And his best spot (2B) is manned by someone who IMO also needs to get regular time. I get the feeling he'll start seeing regular ABs, just not a regular position. Which I don't like since run prevention is always going to be critical. Right now it is what it is. I think his offensive upside could surprise us all as long as he continues to make consistent contact.

A handful of seasons ago, they (IMO) re-committed to building an organization based on not only pitching, but position player depth throughout the minor-league levels. That's just starting to emerge at the major league level now. So yeah, by definition everyone that fits that category is "completely unproven" and doesn't have an established record of production "over the last couple of seasons". Three are here now. One is overmatched at the plate due to injury causing him to be up a little before his time. Another is injured himself. Of the rest, Contreras is fine but has never had more on his plate than he has right now, and it's showing. I believe Winker needs to get further removed from the health issues before a verdict is issued. Anderson is an ancillary guy & not a bad one because, along with his helmet & bat, he usually takes his brain to the plate with him. A couple others have had their inconsistency well documented. End of the day, they'll have stretches where they score runs. Consistently? No. But those are the stretches where you have the opportunity to win 6 of 7, or whatever. The rest of the time, you try to break even. That's what the run prevention can do for you, and why they emphasize it so much. The games vs St.L are a microcosm of that. You documented their lack of offense in roughly half of those games (I actually thought their quality of ABs in the Tuesday win was as bad as any other game in the series). Yet they went 3-3. You want a lineup that looks like that of other teams? The biggest culprit there IMO is Yelichs' slide & Hiura falling off the planet. That was supposed to be your 2 & 3 hitters, or 3 & 4.

The offense collectively isn't very good. Due to individual inconsistency. Can that be corrected/improved upon? That depends on which individuals you're talking about.

Notice I said "often". No, you can't expect to win 2-1 or 3-2 every night. But they're built on the rotation & run prevention. Those areas getting closer to their water level (not to mention healthy) are just as important IMO. How do you know the offense from the early part of the season is long gone? No one thought it was permanent, but they'll never get on a hot streak again? Dang, that's depressing.🤢

No doubt. This is one inconsistent offense. And if you want to really accomplish anything big in this game solo HRs ain't gonna get it done. I think we see Miller getting more regular PT since he's shown some versatility. I think from the neck up, Winkers' ABs have been better than the results. Maybe Yelich can stay healthy. Turang is going to be a "consistency" guy once he settles in. I think those are the areas where we need to hang some hope.

I see some Adames debate on here. I've felt for a while now that he's someone you can win a championship with as your starting SS-----as long as you have an unusually strong batting order where he hits 7th or 8th. He's fun to watch when he's picking up the ball, but the bad stretches are just brutal. It's one thing to accept how hard it is to hit at this level, but way too often he gives himself no chance. That AB to close out the top of the 7th was an embarrassment.

...........and went 3-3. Look, I'm not defending the lack of offense. Just saying what we saw in the middle game of this series is the type of wins we're often going to have to turn in to be successful.