FredLynn
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Everything posted by FredLynn
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As you said he can hit bad pitches but not hard. Few players can do that. It does the team no good if he swings at pitches out of the zone and makes outs. His OPS reflects his wild approach at the plate. Bottom line is that he is hurting the team offensively and he has too much company. They have to try something else. Maybe play Eaton or give Password a shot. Rafaela is failing.
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The thing that makes Rafaela’s incompetence with a bat insurmountable is that he has a fatal flaw. We all know what it is. Very few players can consistently hit pitches out of the zone. He isn’t one of them either. So pitchers simply don’t throw strikes to him and he swings anyway. Other players with much better control of the zone slump too, but they don’t have to overcome the fatal flaw that Rafaela does. I don’t think he will ever become an acceptable contributor with the bat. I hope he does-but me hoping he’ll contribute won’t make it so. I think eventually the team will be forced to trade him for an upgrade.
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Story has a history of succeeding and has much better plate discipline, though he has trouble with certain pitches like most players. And I don't expect Rafaela to maintain an OPS of .496. I expect it to get WORSE.
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We can agree that he should never have been moved to 2B. That move negates any value he has to the team. Its clear that you do not have a lower limit of production before he should be benched. He keeps sucking worse and worse and you would still trot him out there. For me he is WAY past that. An OPS of .526 over a large sample of games is simply not good enough, not with other players slumping. I predicted that as the season wore on and he got tired his numbers would plummet even more, and they have. I do not expect it to improve either. Now he does take away some hits in some games, but its not every game he robs an opposing player of a hit. But it IS every game that he sucks at the plate.
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Yoshida stinks too, no doubt. Probably he is even more useless than Rafaela. Since Aug 1 he is at .235/.614, slightly better than Rafaela but he is useless in the OF. He looks to me to have improved a bit recently but still, he stinks. Thats that thing: teams can handle SOME black holes, but you still have to score runs to win games no matter how good your pitching is. We have too many non contributors.
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I'll use OPS. He is below .700 and looks ridiculous with a bat in his hands. Furthermore, he is sinking fast. Since Aug 1 he is at .180/.526. Totally unacceptable. If he was the only guy who was a bum we could tolerate him. He isn't. He's got company, though he is the worst of them. Its time for him to sit.
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No, its Rafaela. But there are nine guys in the lineup every day. If there were 8 guys who are bashers.....or even just six....then we could tolerate a bum like Rafaela picking up a bat because he is so good in CF. Unfortunately the team has a lot of trouble scoring runs and when too many players aren't producing (and Rafaela is batting ninth for a reason) then you need to sit the worst of them down.
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I don't think you have a lower limit at which Rafaela should be benched. I think he could be at .400 and you would still want him trotting out there every day. He is hurting the team because too many other guys are not producing.
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JBJ was fine for a long time. But like Rafaela he ended up stinking.
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I only bash those who deserve it. Narvaez is performing reasonably well. Rafaela stinks-and I don’t care how great a defensive player he is. JBJ was a great defender too. Neither could hit the baseball after a while.
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10th player? He’s definitely in our top 5.
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Because bashing Rafaela takes up all my bashing points. Resdy to see him BENCHED now that his OPS is at or below .690?
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In theory, yes. One would have to be a hermaphrodite
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At least he made contact. He still sucks. OPS now under .690. JBJ reincarnated
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Rafaela up Next inning
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Good move by Cora PRing Eaton
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Or just guys with talent
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For the right price I’ll do it Gonna need 7 runs to win this
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No way in hell he’s on my team if I’m the GM
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Gonna blow this
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Yeah Like the next 20
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Get through the 7th and we might squeak this one out
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It’s really getting old watching Rafaela at the plate. He’s a BUM
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Six runs isn’t going to be enough This game is far from over
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Even odds it’s not enough