deward

Once upon a time, Suarez was rated the 9th best prospect in the Appy League and as high as the 12th best prospect in the Rays system. He also did get parts of two seasons in the majors with the Giants. I know he's been bouncing around Japan and Korea for the past few years, but he wasn't completely off the radar earlier in his career. Reality may well catch up to him soon, but pitchers have weird trajectories sometimes.

The occasional clunker is inevitable, hopefully he gets them all out of the way before October.

It's every game now...why has every ump turned into Angel Hernandez??

I think you're underestimating the value of an OPS around .800 in the current offensive environment. From a quick glance at BB Ref, it looks like Santander was 6th in OPS in all of baseball among players whose primary position was RF (a couple of spots lower if you include guys who spent time in RF, but it wasn't their primary position). I think Cowser and HK both have the potential to exceed that, but it's certainly not a given that one or both actually does so, especially this year.

Better than Santander is a higher bar than some people seem to think. HK or Cowser will have had a really nice rookie year if they can accomplish that.

Are you talking about the one he hit into the Crawford boxes in left? I don't think he hit one out to right in Houston. Unless you're talking about a college game maybe.

There's a piece on The Athletic today where they interviewed Holliday, Hyde, and Fuller about his struggles (subscription required) https://theathletic.com/5437515/2024/04/23/jackson-holliday-orioles-mlb-career-bad-start A few snippets:

I think Elias' MO is always going to be to squeeze the max potential value out of every asset. If Kjerstad isn't playing well enough to wrest away more than 10 ABs/week from the other players on the roster, then I don't think he stays up. Especially when he'd be tying up a bench spot with a player who can really only play one position in the field. He's going to have to earn a bigger time share to justify his spot.

Ideally, sure, but in a situation where you assume that you're only getting 5-6 years from that player before he leaves, I can understand trying to manage their time so that you get the maximum impact out of it.

Might depend on how long they expect Kjerstad to stay up. Beavers has over 200 PA at AA now, with a .915 OPS, so I'd say he's earned a promotion regardless. Certainly no reason to let Burdick or McKenna stand in his way.

I had to go look at the replays of last year's home runs, because I couldn't believe Brown hadn't already used that. He probably missed his chance since the first home run was an Apple game.

I seem to recall Kjerstad sporting gear emblazoned with Silent J during spring training; I think he's had the nickname since college.

Mounty is also home grown...

Really well.

Kjerstad also hits lefties very well.