2016 22nd Round Pick - Nickolas Gruener - RHP - Harvard

His OPS is inflated by the series vs Charlotte when everyone was posting OPS's over 1.000 He has 1 HR since that series. A .768 OPS in the past 7 days and .670 OPS vs LHP on the season. At 26 years old in AAA, I would define "hitting" as dominating the level. He is not doing that.

Mayo v. Holliday might be an interesting debate now for next one back. 3B Urias, 2B Westburg will probably be it - aside from tonight the first 24 games Urias' defensive starts have been exclusively 3B.    Some of the precise timing also is I think to get Urias or Mateo some extra PA before Yankees, with one of them being set as a starter for that key series.

I don't think he was called up to be a piece of this team. He was called up to fill in while a piece of this team was on the IL.

This was always why calling up Kjerstad was a bit weird. I'm glad they did because he deserves it, but he's kind of just a pinch-hitter on days when they aren't resting Santander. Which is fine for now. But we shouldn't expect him to start many games. 

I'm not.  Who would you sit for him?

Maybe the same Tides social media person who did the pictures for the May 2023 Grayson Rodriguez promotions will get to do them for the May 2024 Jackson Holliday promotions.    Baseball has at times been critiqued for not marketing its players well... I get doing this early as insurance if based on the early results they just think Urias is the better practical choice for the short term.    While OAK has a couple very talented Arms, overall their pitching isn't that strong. I think the 12th and 13th bats on the roster are especially light use on rosters where the first string is very strong, so Banuelos, McKenna day to day matters very little.    If Hays or anyone else on the first string was out a month, I believe we'd more likely see Stowers or Norby.     

Anyone surprised to not see Kjerstad starting tonight against a right handset?