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Can we just make Siani the “Designated Fielder”? You get one DH who hits for a pitcher and one DF who fields for any other player. Siani can be Burleson’s DF. I’m calling the commissioner about it today.
Jnevel, lol. Kind of of like a courtesy defensive player. A Burleson/Siani hybrid would be an All Star.
When Edman returns there will be a sticky decision to be made. I don’t think they will cut Crawford or Carp. If not, the Edman replaces Siani.
I predict someone else will be injured or traded before Edman is ready. It is like spring training for him, only worse because he hasn’t played in 10 months.
For the month of June Siani had an OPS of .699. He is not an automatic out. With his elite glove I will take him as a #9 hitter.
Normally I’d say no chance, but they’ve proven they have a tendency to paint themselves into a corner with the manner in which this roster’s been constructed. In addition to that fact, Pages has displayed an ability to recite a bit of the riot act in response to anarchy on the basepaths. I’m guessing that they don’t even know what they’re going to do. Touch and go?
We do have a while before Edman returns. Lots of things can happen, including the 13th worst hitter in MLB (among those with 200 PAs), Siani, returning to his May/June stats.
Carlson still has options left too.
1) Winn SS 2) Wetherholt 2B 3) Burleson 1B 4) Contreras C 5) Donovan LF 6) Arenado 3B 7) Nootbaar RF 8) Gorman DH 9) Siani CF. Could this be the future ’25 lineup? Can Wetherholt move through the system that fast? If Wetherholt was pegged as the potential #1 pick in the recent draft. Why couldn’t he?
To Shady:
1) No
2) No
3) NoThere are only two months of play remaining before 2025. However, if you’d said “mid-2026”, I would say that would be the “best case”. 2027 would be a more reasonable expectation.
All you have to do is a little homework to determine how realistic your hopes are. Look back at recent first overall hitter picks for the answer. The last three of them have yet to stick, multiple years later. The path to MLB is not nearly as easy, even for the best, as you seem to think it is.
2022: Jackson Holliday – 1 1/2 years draft to MLB. In minors now.
2021: Henry Davis – 2 years. In minors now.
2020: Spencer Torkelson – 1 1/2 years. In minors now.
2019: Adley Rutschman – almost 3 years (one year COVID)CC, I sure wish Walker could. The lineup could use another RH power bat. Then, what would you do in CF. Siani is such a fabulous defensive CF. And he’s improving as a hitter. If Walker’s in RF. It would then be Siani or Noot as the regular CF. Scott could also be a fabulous defensive CF. IF he can hit MLB pitching respectably.
Brian, could be. But maybe, just maybe, Wetherholt is the exception. I saw where a scout said Wetherholt was the best hitting prospect he’d ever seen. Take it for what it’s worth. And then there’s the youngsters in the MLB, Sosa and Acuna Jr. However, I agree, mid ’26 is likely more realistic for the lineup I proposed.
Shady, Acuna signed in 2015 and reached Atlanta in 2018. I don’t know which Sosa you are referring to, but if you mean Juan Soto, he also signed in 2015 and also reached MLB three years later.
Hitters just don’t go from amateur status (no matter where they came from) to MLB that quickly. I can hope to win the lottery, but I understand the odds against it.
So wouldn’t both Sosa and Acuna match up pretty close to where Wetherholt would be in ’25, chronollogically? Considering, if Wetherholt would have signed out of high school.
One would really be stretching to try to equate three years in college to three years in minor league ball. If that was the case, guys would go from college straight into MLB. But they don’t.
Wetherholt wasn’t drafted out of high school, so his talent was not developed and recognized at this level when he was that young.
Talking ages, Sosa was 19 years old and Acuna 20 when reaching MLB. Wetherholt is almost 22 NOW. So he is already late two or three years and counting! In other words, the comparisons are apples and oranges.
So, age, then, isn’t really that much of factor in Wetherholt not possibly being ready in ’25. Is that correct?
Brian, please indulge me. What level of the minors would you compare the Big 12 to in which Wetherholt competed in. And basically, dominated his last season. I’ve read the SEC being compared to AA by some as far as the competition.
Did you ever wonder what pct. of minor league players ever play in a solitary Big League baseball game?
you don’t think Walker improves enough to be in your 2025 lineup?
It is stunning how little Walker is talked about, anywhere. His performance in AAA has been eye opening, and not in a good way, and nobody thinks its a worthy topic. I scan media, blogs, etc regularly. Crickets. He was kind of heating up above room temperature in June, but now 20 days into July he is hitting under .200 for the month with two extra base hits, doubles. What in the world happened to him? We are way past small sample size this year. I think maybe they are trying to alter his hitting approach/mechanics and not having any luck. He seems pretty far from the major league.
My conspiracy theory is that when Jordan was coming up, he was taught an optimized swing which maximized exit velo and optimized launch angle, and which was repeatable. But then opponents learned they could just pitch around that swing, since its all he had. Same thing has happened to Gorman. Admittedly, both can turn around a mistake that comes over the middle, but pitchers learned to make sure to err out of the zone and risk a walk now and then.
A look at Michael Siani’s offense with respect to BA …..
Career BA – .218
2024 BA – .230BA
2024 (Mar/Apr) .128
2024 (May) .253
2024 (Jun) .291
2024 (thru Jul 21) .243Siani’s BA for May/June/July (Mar/Apr excluded) is .265
Siani had a birthday 5 days ago. He is now 25 year old. It’s still too early to tell what his ceiling is for BA and OBP.
Siani:
4.1% BB%.
.269 OBP
.235 BA
.209 xBA (!)
.255 wOBA
.239 xwOBA (bottom one-percentile in MLB)
64 wRC+
62 OPS+Even great defenders have to hit at least a little. That kind of offensive output simply won’t cut it.
Even Ozzie Smith had to get his wRC+ into the high-70s-to-low-80s to be a valuable player.
“I’ve read the SEC being compared to AA by some as far as the competition.”
This SEC mythmaking deserves de-bunking, I think.
Keith Law, who’s been analyzing/ranking minor leaguers at national platforms (ESPN, The Athletic) for roughly 20 years now, gets asked about this very subject two or three times a year in his chats. The answer never changes: short-season ball is equivalent to Division 1 college baseball — yes, even the very best college conferences. Same answer when Longenhagen at Fangraphs is asked, I’m pretty sure.
I was surprised the first time I saw that response, many moons ago — because some college superstars enjoy immediate dominance in the minors at the A-Ball level. But as time has passed and I’ve tracked LARGE sample sizes of collegiate stars, I’ve noticed how many struggle at even the Low-A level when first exposed to that type of competition.
Some conferences are considerably tougher than others, of course. And within the SEC, for instance, if you took the conference All-Star team in recent years, that might be a limited group who are at the Low A-Ball level talent-wise. But the thing of it is, even in the very best NCAA conferences, once you get to the 3rd and 4th starting pitchers — or even the Saturday starter for most teams — the depth just isn’t there. Not like in the pros. So the college stars can pad their batting numbers pretty easily.
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Take JJ Bleday for some recent supporting evidence. Huuuge college superstar, home run king at a glamourpuss SEC school, drafted #4 overall in 2019 and immediately a consensus top 30-40 overall prospect in all the minors before he’d ever played a professional ballgame.
His slashline for his final college season? .347/.465/.701
His slashline in High-A right after college? .257/.311/.379Now, to be fair that was in the Florida State League. But still a difference of nearly 500 OPS points sums things up rather neatly. And furthermore, two years after that he still couldn’t manage a .700 OPS in Double-A. (Now, finally, at age 26, he’s having some MLB success at the plate.)
Again, it’s the lack of quality depth that drags down the overall talent level in college ball. Think of it like the Negro Leagues, in a way. The best Negro Leaguers were every bit as great as the best Blanco Leaguers…but the Negro Leagues on the whole weren’t as strong as their honky peers because of the profound difference in depth. (White leagues were drawing from ten times the population base as the Negro Leagues, to field just twice as many pro teams.)
Similarly, pro baseball draws from all of the best available scholastic & collegiate talent. So of course there is no way possible that the SEC has ever been at any point equivalent to a professional Double-A league, nor anything close to it.
Simply put, if the SEC = AA, that would mean that the SEC annually features dozens of 19- and 20-year-olds playing well at the Double-A level. And that’s complete nonsense.
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