Tony-OH

Yep, another head scratcher. Why start your rookie who has struggled against lefties against a guy who dominates lefties?

I believe you may have missed the sarcasm there.

Now I like Vavra as a bench guy overall, but if one of them is going to sit the bench while the other plays everyday in AAA, I'm fine with sending Stowers down if the choice was between the two. Saying that, let's look at the two by skills. Hitting average: Vavra edge Vavra has a career .306 average in 1099 minor league PAs while Stowers is at .261. Vavra hits the ball better gap to gap. Hitting power: Stowers big edge Stowers has a 52 homers in 1165 PAs while Vavra has 21. Stower's .158 ISO last year in limited major league play doubled Vavra's .071. Hitting OBP: Edge Vavra Now Stowers is no slouch here with a 11.1% BB rate in AAA and a .377 OBP in AA and .361 OBP in AAA. Vavra though has a career minor league OBP is .410. Hitting left-handers: Big edge Stowers Stowers slashed .330/.441/.577/1.018 in 118 AAA PAs and .292/.384/.567/.951 in 138 PAs in 2021. Vavra slashed .239/.372/.310/.682 in 86 AAA PAs and .162/.311/.189/.500 in 45 PAs in 2021. Defense: Edge Stowers Stowers has better more accurate arm with a peak max of 96 MPH to Vavra's 89.1. Feet covered are about the same though Stowers is a little better on ft vs avg on similar balls hit to him. Player Reaction Burst Route ft vs avg ft/sec Vavra -2 -4.3 0.7 -5.6 29.7 Stowers -1.9 -2 0.2 -3.8 29.4 Running: About even Both are surprisingly below average runners with Stowers being in the 42.7 percentile and Vavra at 44.6. The issue here is that OBP typically does not translate to the major leagues without a threat of power and Vavra's .327 major league OBP kinda already suggests that in a small sample size of 113 PAs. As bench players, it depends on what player you want and Vavra's defensive flexibility (though he's not very good at 2B and has limited experience at 3B) gives him a little edge. We've already seen Vavra's lack of experience in the outfield in the Boston series and I've seen Stowers enough in the minors to know he's an adequate, better than Santander defensive outfielder. As a starter, I'm going to take the power from Stowers everyday of the week in my lienup over a Vavra type.

Yeah, the more I think about it, Bautista hadn't pitched since Friday so he needed some work.

Oh, must've missed that. Bautista hasn't been used since Friday so in retrospect, he probably needed the work.

Let's hope. This is not a very good A's team, but it is baseball.

He had no choice because he didn't have anyone else up.

I'm happy for the win, but a good manager has someone up with Bautista in case it becomes a non save situation. Waste of the closer here. Poor bullpen management.

Tell you what, the one thing the Orioles must not have worked on much in spring training was flyballs and pop ups. They have been quite awful.

They cover up their own mistakes from New York.

Ortiz would have caught that. Just saying.

You know what those guys are there to do? "F@#$ us!"

Someone needs to investigate the New York umpires. That's ludicrous.

1st base umpire about to go 0-for-2 on close plays!

Let's not get too pumped too early. The A's are pretty bad, but our bullpen has not exactly been a strength.

Agreed. It's bad in so many ways. It's not special, its not cool, it's unsanitary and it really is just plain juvenile. I have zero issues with player having fun after hitting home runs, but they have to come up with something better than that. I was embarrassed for Rutschman to have to partake.

Of course Hays and Mountcastle go yards tonight. We were just discussing them in another thread as needing to get going.

Over $600 million was bet last month in Maryland and Maryland got all of like $5.1 million. It's another scam to make Billionaires and politicians richer.

Good Lord, enough with the Draft Kings BS. Commercials between innings, during the game, around the stadium, end of inning seqway and over and under by the announcer is just too much. This crap is ruining the experience.

Gibson has settled down quite well. That's the one thing veterans do. If you don't get them early when they stink, they can put it all together.

Say what we want about Rougned, he had a well above average arm for a 2B. He also would not allow the frat boy bong celebration.

He's out.. but damn Frazier really has a below average arm even for a 2B.

The bong celebration makes me miss that home run chain.

The one I'm talking about was outside of Pickles.

Yep, wall cost three runs.