moonslav59

The tiny sample size was 2 for 5.

Papi was there for HRam in 2015.

As of now, I do too, but ERod has a chance to pass Porcello by doing well to finish out the season.

Unfortunately, that's not the way it works.

I'd play a blindfolded Nunez over Holt, but having Holt leading off is insanity. Didn't want to move anyone around? Nobody has been set in any position all year long. The two hits were nice, but it was still a bad move. BTW, Holt has started 6 of 13 games. Glad to see him get his OPS over .500. JF is a genius!

Nunez has begun to come down to earth somewhat, and when Pedey comes back, I can see not needing or wanting to play him everyday, but despite the bad 2017 splits, I want Young in the line-up vs every LH'd starter, and I feel Nunez and HRam are both better options than Moreland vs LH'd and RH'd starters. I can't see Moreland playing 70% of the games. We basically will have these 4 players will play 1B and DH, unless Nunez is needed at 2B and Pedey will be used at DH some or a lot: HRam Nunez Young (v LHPs) Moreland If Young only plays 33% of the time, we have 1 and 2/3 slots for 3 guys. I can't see how Moreland gets 66% playing time without greatly reducing HRam or Nunez's (or Pedey) time.

LOL He might be able to hit some foul balls and drive up the pitch count.

Not only is playing .499 OPS guy Holt dead wrong, batting him lead-off is criminal. JF should be locked up. That being said, watch Holt go 3 for 5 today.

Yup. Look, if all you got for a reason to keep playing Moreland or battting him 4th or 5th are his August numbers and apparently GG defense, then fine. To each his own. I'm going with Nunez, Young vs LHPs, and reluctantly, HRam over Moreland once Pedey returns. Now, if Moreland is still hitting over .900 when Pedey comes back, and HRam is slumping more than he is now, maybe I'll try to squeeze Moreland into more line-ups, but I'm thinking we will need HRam in the playoffs, so I'm sticking with Hanley- hoping he's not a sinking ship. HRam has a much longer history of amazing (longer) offensive accomplishments than Moreland's few hot streaks over his career. I'm not benching Young or Nunez just yet. There's no one else Moreland can replace.

Where did I say Moreland's August is a "fluke"? The guy is streaky. Expecting him to slump soon is not that hard to imagine. I think I am pretty consistent in my criteria for judging players. I look at their most recent 2-3 year sample size mostly and may adjust for injury or rookie seasons. I also take into account L-R splits and recent trends but not as much as larger sample sizes. Often times, I will use a small sample size, and always try to remember to make sure I say it is a small sample size, when someone says something like, "We should bench Young," based on going 0 for 4 in one game, but he's gone .900+ in the previous 2-3 weeks. Saying that does not mean I highly value a 3 week sample size. The point is made to show the absurdity of some knee-jerk posters. I guess it looks like "cherry-picking", and I often try to show a "balancing" stat (sometimes in an equally small sample size or just slightly larger) to someone trying to make a good or bad point about a player. I do tend to play devil's advocate at times- probably to a fault. I do believe in "hot hands", but it does not rule all my decisions. Maybe that makes me inconsistent or hypocritical to some, but I really do try to be consistent with my value criteria methodology. I just don't have much faith in Moreland, offensively. I know that sometimes when I rant about him still batting 4th, he goes 2 for 4 with a couple RBIs. I never pretend to be smarter than JF or DD, but that doesn't mean I'm ever going to stop giving my opinions.

It's only "wrong" when you tell who should sit instead. Plus, a players last 10-15 games or so is not a good predictor of what is to come. I'm not saying I don't like going with the hot hand, but to me, Moreland should be the odd man out when everyone is healthy. Who knows, by the time Pedey gets back, Moreland might be in a 3 for 30 stretch.

Nothing, starting today, Mookie is going to go on a wicked hot streak.

Fine, but when you criticize someone for making a suggestion without providing your opinion on what is better, it kind of rings hollow.

It's not surprising to me that Price stumbled pretty much right out of the gate. I wouldn't have predicted it, but a lot of the biggest signings over the last 20 years have been busts since day one or shortly thereafter. The majority fail to reach expectations. I'm against the philosophy of these massive contracts, but we really, really, really needed an ace (or two), and I felt like Price was about as good a gamble as one could ever hope for. Yeah, others have worked out better, but did Scherzer really look better than Price when he was signed? I just hope we can get some value out of him going forward. It's looking more and more like his 2017 season is toast... maybe 2018 too.

...and it's not like Devers needed a rest. We've had more days off recently that I have ever seen this time of year: Aug 2, 7, 10 and 17

Can't even attempt a "drawing board?"

Yippee. Start the .499 OPS guy! This will be his 6th start since August 5th. 6 out of 13 games! I realize Pedey's been hurt, but this is nothing short of sick.

Small sample size. He's a .700 to .750 hitter. I guess we could bench HRam, but he's actually been very consistently around .750 all year (unlike Moreland). Who do you bench so Moreland can play (assuming just against RHPs)?

I think his defense has taken a step backwards for 2 years in a row after seemingly improving in 2015. UZR/150 -3.7 2014 +0.9 2015 -2.8 2016 -2.2 2017 -1.2 Career DRS -9 -1 -10 -13- so far this year -31 career fangraphs has is WAR at 1.9 this year after seeing 4.3 and 4.7 the two years prior. He has a career 11.4 WAR in 586 games- that's about 4 seasons of 145 games each or an average WAR of about 3.0 for 155 games or so. Hopefully, 2017 is just a blip, but he might not even reach half the WAR he had in 2016 or 2015. He's not alone: WAR 2017/2016 1.9/4.8 JBJ (might barely reach 50% of 2016) -0.1/2.6 HRam 1.9/ 5.2 Pedey 4.5/7.8 Betts (looks like he will reach over 60% of 2016) 0.2/2.5 Leon -0.3/1.1 Young -0.5/0.2 Holt (was over 2.0 in 2014 & 2015)

Until Devers arrived on the scene, we really didn't have many options for clean-up and 5 slot hitters. 4 slot: .765 .778 HRam (259 PAs) .721 Moreland (181) .722 Beni (80) 1.567 Young (only 18 PAs) 5 slot: .702 (a horrible number for this important slot) .771 HRam (136) .740 Moreland (136) .480 JBJ (68) .569 Young (60) .735 Beni (54) 1.018 Devers (37) .450 Bogey (16) 1.038 Travis (13) Total PAs 4 & 5: 1076 HRam + Moreland= 812 (over 75%) With Betts, Pedey, Beni & Bogey and more recently Nunez batting mostly in the 1-3 slots, other options for the 4 or 5 slots were limited. I wish we had kept Betts up 4th all year, but that argument has been beaten to death already. If we look at overall OPS, there's really not much difference between HRam/Moreland and other 4/5 slot options. .798 Beni (has sucked vs LHPs) .792 Betts (should bat 4th) .784 Pedey (lowest SLG/highest OBP) .767 HRam .758 Moreland .756 JBJ .736 Bogey .732 Young .725 Vaz .661 Leon .499 Holt Maybe when Pedey comes back healthy, we can see this: 1. Nunez v R/Bogey v L 2. Pedey 3. Beni v R/ Young v L 4. Betts 5. Devers 6. HRam 7. JBJ 8. Bogey v R/ Beni v L 9. Vaz Basically, Nunez & Young platoon at DH and Bogey and beni flip positions vs RHPs or LHPs. Moreland rides the bench.

He is a good base runner, yes, but being able to play 7 positions all below average defensively is not as valuable as some think it is. The sub .500 OPS cancels out his "flexibility".

Young again was not a plus as a DH. Maybe we need to try something else. The DH should at least have some hard hit balls in play. Young had a .611 SLG% in August before tonight's game (.975 OPS). Let's find someone else to pick on. Note: the killer Bs are all under .600 over the last 28 days!

Tough loss. Nunez appears to be returning to earth. Devers is a Yankee killer. Pen looked good, as did Sale, except for two pitches. JBJ might be showing signs of snapping out of it.

Jalen Beeks 7 IP 2 ER 7 Hits 1 BB 5 Ks ERA now down to 3.00. Lin hit his first HR

They're talking about having AGon on the bench after getting Granderson.