Pickles

Exactly. I mean not to derail the thread but that's why they signed Frazier imo. They didn't want two rookies as essentially everyday players in the IF at the same time. At least not at the beginning of the year.

Eh. The thing about the slumps of established big leaguers, and the adjustments that rookies make to the big leagues, is that slumps end. Not everyone successfully transitions to the major leagues. When Stowers goes 2-30 with 12 Ks we don't know when that is going to end; when the light is going to turn on. When Santander goes 2-30 with 12 Ks you can feel confident that he's going to start raking real soon.

I think the bigger thing is staggering them. You don't want 3-4 guys making adjustments all at once.

This could go in a million threads, but for note, Santander just made a poor throw to prevent a routine 1-6-3 DP and he should be thanking Mateo that ball didn't either allow the runner to be safe, or go flying into LF. Just wanted to make note. He actually fielded a sharp chopper cleanly and made a quick, hard throw, but as McDonald explained on the broadcast quite well: He didn't position himself properly to make the throw by taking a step in to his left and creating a line to throw to 2nd. That's something that can be learned.

Hey any interviewer who can coax out such a controversial and guarded opinion from their subject as "Adley is the whole package" is clearly a master interviewer.

Because he did not pursue it. If he had, it most certainly would have been.

In effect that's exactly what he did.

Plenty of teams would have offered him more than 100 million if he hadn't bound himself to the posting process b/c he didn't care about maximizing his money, but about playing in So Cal.

Is there also a major league team? Not to get off topic, but that would be the place to expand if only there were a way to handle the travel.

Fair enough. I don't currently occupy the man's headspace. I'd be willing to wager, however, that he'll sign on the West Coast. The LA teams, and SEA being the favorites.

Plenty of teams offered more money than the Angels. If he had waited 18 months he could have come over unbound by the posting process. He chose the Angels, and cost himself a lot of money in the process.

I don't think it's about reading a player's mind so much as judging him by his actions. We already know what he wants. Six years ago he left hundreds of millions of dollars on the table so he could play in So Cal, expressly because of its large Japanese community and its proximity to Japan. It doesn't take Freud to analyze that.

Cool. Another one of these.

He'll be back. None of this is unusual. It's actually far rarer that a rookie come up and make a seamless transition to the big leagues. It's why building your roster around a bunch of rookies is probably not the best idea.

Is this Santander's first start at first? Unless BB-Reference is wrong this will be his first major league game at first.

It's not about 17 at bats. It's about a career of being a solid option against lefties.

Cowser definitely has the pedigree as well. Cowser isn't the same guy they drafted in many ways. Less bat to balls, more Ks, more power, and better defense. It's an evolving profile.

Cowser definitely a better prospect. Anyone arguing against that is generally swimming against the tide.

I think he's a bit of a cautionary tale in general about the prospects. Just because you've put up a 900 OPS in AAA for 400 ABs means you're going to come up and be better than major league regulars, especially right away. There's no guarantee Cowser is better than Hays or Santander and taking ABs from them could make the team worst. The same is true of Westburg and Frazier.

I know you want that. But me and Baltimore are not ready to take ABs away from Hays and Santander to make that happen. And if you don't do that, and it's a significant amount of their ABs, as even a "couple of days a week" is 20-30% of someone's playing time, then the only role available right now is a part time one.

That's probably a consideration too. They don't want to break in 3-4 rookies simultaneously, and as we've seen this year, that's with good reason.

It makes the team better to have Cowser take the Vavra role. But is that best for Cowser? There's still a balancing act. Cowser needs to play every day. A part time role in the MLs is not in his best interest right now imo.

This is true as well. I could see a fairly major trade in July. Now, will they ship out the young vets or the prospects, is the question.

You're still only talking about a handful of games a month. That's not enough to justify dramatically remaking the rotation, which is what a Cowser call up would require.

I'd take ABs away from McKenna for Cowser too if it made sense but it doesn't because McKenna's ABs come mostly against lefties and that's where I'd hide Cowser. This is one of those good problems to have. IMO, people criticizing the FO for this state of affairs have it completely backwards; they should be praised for it. I doubt this goes on for long, as between injuries and performance, this will likely resolve itself.