Dojji

Have you guys seen Reddick's numbers with the Athletics this year? .864 OPS with 11 HR's. Man, all I can do when I look at our own outfield mess is sit here and think "Boy, we could have used that guy." Meanwhile Sweeney has returned to earth -- not a bad player, but no match for what Reddick has done for Oakland -- and we haven't even seen Bailey debut yet, and at this point we can't guarantee him the closer's job back since Aceves has been lights out since his bad first couple games. I'm not sue I want to gainsay the thought process behind the trade, and it's still not as bad as Masterson and 2 other talented pitchers for a DH masquerading as a catcher, but man, would anyone else really rather have Reddick than Sweeney and Bailey right now?

Well I've compared nava to Pedroia, and to David Dejesus, but Yaz? Umm wow. Wasn't even on my radar as a comparison having never seen him play.

"He stinks" is just a little bizarre when the kid has a 1.000+ OPS at the moment. I could get that people don't trust him to hold it -- heck, I don't. But come on, this "stinker" has carried the team to a certain extent, and played a big role in propelling them back to .500 territory. An OF, even a corner OF, who can get on base consistently can start on many of the bottom 15 teams in MLB. Lest we forget, ZIPS saw this coming. I got shouted down pretty good when I brought up in the preseason that one of the ZIPS projections predicted Nava could pull in a ~.750 OPS. It doesn't mean much now, except to suggest some level of sustainability. Frankly, I think that's a pretty good split-the-difference point for him, and if that OPS is weighted to the OBP side of the equation a guy like Nava can win a job. He's not a bench player. He's not replacement level. He's already proven that to my satisfaction. From what I've seen, he's a David Dejesus. A below average journeyman caliber starting MLB corner outfielder. He has the talent to hit .290+ in the big leagues and get on base well enough to be worth a shot at the top of someone's order. And if that's all it is that may well be enough.

I think he's shown more improvement than people let on. Don't forget that they reworked his mechanics a bit -- they have to, a starter couldn't get by on his old ones. He needs to get his new mechanics down, and that takes reps. He's getting enough outs right now to suggest that he's making progress, even if he's not overpowering people yet. The ability to make the big pitch when he desperately needs it, is frequently an advanced sign that he's getting back to being able to make the big pitch whenever he wants. Once he crosses that hurdle, I think he'll be more than fine.

True enough. I'm never happier when some guy everyone dismissed as a nobody makes a huge impact.

Umm what? In the first year? After not starting for 4-5 years? You're insane. If that was the expectation, than whoever put forward that expectation was also insane. They didn't transfer Bard to the rotation for what he was going to do this year. If they had, it would have been a ludicrous decision. Everyone who was paying attention knew he would be a work in progress for at least this year and probably the next 2.

David Dejesus makes pretty good money being the kind of corner OF that I suspect Nava is capable of. Dejesus was a bit better defensively in his prime, but not really all that much. If every team in baseball could find that ideal corner OF, you'd be right, and Nava wouldn't have a shot. But heck, Brett Gartner spent 2 years as the starting left fielder of the Yankees, so it can't be THAT easy to find that prototypical slugger type can it?

I don't see him regressing *that* much. He has all the talent he needs to hit .280 in the bigs, that and a few doubles, with him being a switch hitter, should secure him at least a platoon role somewhere.

Ross is not consistent. Middlebrooks is the future and I'd like to see him here. So far he's been contributing steadily since he was called up. Ross can function well as a backup. It was his original purpose. The real casualty of everyone coming back is going to be Nava. Ross does Nava's job better than anyone's going to trust Nava to do it so he's probably done at that point despite really being a pretty solid all around LF. If he's lucky they'll find a team to trade him to who's willing to explore his potential, otherwise he becomes another story of the amazing age related catch 22 you run into in pro sports.

More to the point, I've said this before and I'll say it again. The fact that he's won games, kept his team in the games he's lost, and has given us reasonably decent innings, these things are positives, and they're especially positive in the context of not having his A stuff from start to start. You've got to be mentally tough to pull that off, which was the one thing I thought Bard wasn't. And you've got to be able to pitch well to contact to even have a shot at what Bard is doing. In other words, he's learning exactly the lessons a player like Bard would need to learn to round off his education as a pitcher. Once he gets his mechanics down this kid is going to make something of himself.

Nope, I don't "have" to see your point because you don't have one. The Orioles' lineup is not elite, but the soft bottom of that lineup notwithstanding they're a capable offense.

Lester Doubront Beckett Bard Buchholz

Once again I see a kid that starts out really rough, but battles through the first 4 innings, bears down a bit as the start goes on, and finishes up with 5+ and 2 ER against a pretty credible lineup. It's not pretty, but once again he got the job done -- a lot like 2007 Jon Lester in that respect. I'm really starting to respect Bard's ability to gut his way out of rough patches. He really hasn't gotten blown up very often -- only twice in 8 starts. He hasn't had the putaway stuff, and his command isn't great, and he's still getting through the 5th every night and has pitched into the 6th IIRC in every single one of his starts (even the 2 where that turned out to be a mistake). When you don't have putaway stuff or your A-game command, and you can still fight like that, you've got some really good intangibles as a potential starting pitcher.

You need to keep an open mind about guys like this. It's better to give them a chance until you have a good reason not to. Every now and again one of them really surprises you. All Nava could do to demonstrate his worth as a ballplayer was hit at the level he was playing at -- and for the most part he did exactly that. Until he gives us a reason to doubt him, I think we need to give him the courtesy of letting him stand or fall.

That wasn't a cheap homer either, for what it's worth. He pretty much got all of it.

Now now, we have a little rule about personal attacks. Your sally against Limbaugh is fine, but you're hitting some members of this forum with that sweeping generalization there. BTW the only bias you're exposing by continuing this rant is your own. Just sayin'.

And let me say this before I forget because I wasn't actually on for the gamethread. Doubront was BRILLIANT last night. Hate to waste a start like that. That rookie is currently our second best SP and he looks a lot like 2008 Lester.

Yeah, Limbaugh is many things. He is a boor and a demagogue, and he is guilty of oversimplifying countless complicated issues into one line catch phrases, but he is not an idiot. He is a very sharp self promoter and he has made a national icon of himself from pretty much the ground up. I don't respect everything the man says, but I respect his success.