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Yeah, I agree. But I am OK with Burly out there over Mercado. That guy rubs me the wrong way.
Carlson’s OPS+ is 72 and O’Neill’s is 70 so no big loss to the lineup in either case. They both have defensive utility though. Burleson’s OPS+ is 85 and Yepez’s is 99, so neither of them is hitting enough to justify the hit on defense. A lot of names that doesn’t add up to anything. I wish Mo could trade all four for one who could both hit and field decently.
May 30, 2023 at 3:47 pm in reply to: Why Jordan Walker will start the season in AAA – not MLB #222807Over his last 15 games . . .
How can you argue with evidence like that.
The organization’s goal seems to be to suck less than the rest of the division.
Donovan seems to be coming around some. His OBP is getting ‘up in the order’ worthy again. That being the case, I would go back to what worked well in the later part of last year, which was Noot, Donovan, Goldy, NA in the 1-4 slots. Then maybe Gorman, mostly to avoid another righty and because Contreras seems to stink with the stick. I would strongly consider platooning Gorman for a while, so he does not have to be getting looks at lefties until he levels off. Then at some point ease back into that. If someone else could emerge as 5 slot capable, I would put Gorman 6th to have some thumpage down further in the lineup. It might even work with Edman there since he doesn’t strike out much and would be putting it in play there in the 5 slot. Probably what would happen in real life is Contreras and his contract would go 5th even though he is a rally killer right now.
If Dunn had been a Cardinal I would have jumped long ago. He not only struck out a lot, he also walked a lot, leading the league a few times I think. Very respectable career OBP. But he just moved like a slug out there and was terrible in the outfield. Went into slumps like nobody’s business. He answered the bell every day though. And was good for 40 dongs for like 10 -15 years. I agree the all or nothing types are in these days.
I’ve have a soft spot for college club baseball since I ended up playing at that level after an injury permanently knocked me off the varsity team before the first game of my freshman year.
Players will always regress to their mean, statistically. For Gorman, that’s likely around .260-.270, if that
I would be interested to know how you come up with that? I don’t think we yet have a mean for his performance vs MLB competition. As of yesterday, in MLB he is at .247 over 506 PAs spread across last year and this, which I do not think establishes a mean, or suggests what it will be. In AAA he did .274 over 516 PAs. Most people do worse in MLB than AAA, but some eventually do better. But I don’t think we have any idea yet at all.
If he can finish out the year around .260-.270, then I would agree with that as a mean to compare future results against. But he could end up .240 or .290 and there is no way to know.
The two things they did that might have put Gorman in a funk were moving him from 6 to 3 in the lineup, and having him looking at pitches from lefties now. Baseball common sense would say go back to what you know worked, and start again from there.
I can imagine Ollie coming back down from upstairs and McEwing asks “what did he say about Gorman”, and Ollie says ” he said beep, boop, bleep, bleep and then the screen turned blue”.
Its not that I don’t like him, Oliver. It is not that I think he will fail. Having a guy like this pop out of the system is not new. It does not mean he will be a middle of the order fixture. It doesn’t mean much of anything. MLB is not bursting with middle of the order power bats because most of the time they do not pan out. We will have to see what happens.
In my opinion he is wilting under the pressure of having been cemented into the middle of the order, hitting 3rd between two of the great hitters in the game, a pivotal position in the lineup, at age 23, after a grand total of a few weeks of success at the MLB level. Total stupidity, but the computer must have told them to do it. Computers and wonks have no knowledge of intangible factors. If they ruin him forever It would not be surprising.
I guess Mo had some dry powder from this year’s cap.
Yeah, Paulie had some folks buying it. Another guy to be wary of is Babe Ruth Gorman. He’s dropped 25 points off his BA in 8 days. .301 to .276, and struck out 11 times in those 8 games. In other words exactly like we saw last year. Imagine that. He doesn’t have the years of futility that DeJong has, but he doesn’t have any 30 homer season on his resume either.
If you haven’t been to Lloyd Hopkins Field in Alton, its the poster boy for up close and personal. The dug outs are actually dug into the ground and you can sit on the roof of them. We were sitting there the first day of the tournament and a batter came back to the dugout and I said ‘nice swing you’ve got buddy’, and he said ‘thanks pop’. That took me by surprise because I had completely forgotten that I am on old man. I guess I wasn’t for a little while.
The collegiate National Club Baseball Association World Series is going on right now over in Alton, Ill.
Its a double elimination tournament amongst the top 8 club baseball teams nationally. We will be going to a game tomorrow night between Penn State and the winner of tonight’s game between Colorado and Florida State. Its great fun. Decent baseball on a small scale.
credit dylan buell/getty images
That was a disgrace. Embarrassed to see the birds on the bat on those guys.
Verhagen and Helsley, over the side with them. We all love Waino but 5 innings doesn’t work. Sorry.
Safety squeeze not defensed well by the Cards. It was a good bunt so maybe nothing they could do, but not having anyone covering home is not the correct way to handle that. Waino has to be the guy to field that, and then decide if he has a play at home or throw to first. You don’t have your catcher come charging out to field it, leaving no one covering home. I should say that Waino looked to be caught completely flat footed. I don’t think he even made a move toward fielding the ball. Maybe Contreras saw or sensed that if he didn’t jump out there everyone would be safe.
A guy getting warm out in the pen in the 5th is bad. That guy is Matz. Waino close to 100 pitches, looks pretty much done.
12 up, 12 down thru 4. At least Waino has kept us in it thru 4. Hopefully he can do 5 innings.
Waino coming with 88 mph FB, 84 mph slider, 72 mph curve.
Just tuned in to see Noot coming off with the trainer. Yikes.
We are Ofer 6 through two innings I see. That means the bottom of the order due up in the 3rd, so maybe we will get some production.
Willson hit .225 away from Wrigley last season, so his current .220 BA is not too far off what we should expect. That’s a little below his career .240 away from Wrigley, but he’s been tailing off generally since his first few years in the league. Its probably not going to get any better. I wouldn’t expect the contract to age too well either. For now though, the narrative is BDW opened up the money gusher and Mo went out and signed us a middle of the order bat. So he’s a middle of the order bat, with an OPS+ of 85, and we’ve got him for 5 years. Maybe his D behind the plate will get better.
The computer seems to have settled on this lineup for some reason. Not that it has been exceptionally successful. Gorman had a hot six weeks so he’s now the next Babe Ruth, I get that, so I can understand him cemented into the #3 slot. But Contreras #5 is purely a money play. Other than a warm spell in late April he’s stunk at the plate.
A big problem for Thompson continues to be walks
Agreed. A BB/9 of 11.9 over 5 starts is sort of comical. But more broadly, way too much traffic. H/9 of 11.2 is way high, contributing to the WHIP of 2.561. 5 GS is not an inconsequential sample size. The IP is low, at least partially due to getting knocked out early all the time. His pitch count ramped up into the 70s pretty quick but has stayed there, seemingly because he can’t stay in the game. The contrast with last season is stark.
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