Lineup w/ Rasmus if everyone's healthy?

[Guest]

Rasmus has a career .287 OBP and a career OPS of .648 against LHP. Last year he hit .195 in a small sample size. Playing the guy everyday would be setting him up for failure.

Not 1 good LHP in the A.L East. Rasmus will be fine . Rasmus will get off days vs the Likes of Sale and other LHP studs.

[ChuckS]

Not 1 good LHP in the A.L East. Rasmus will be fine . Rasmus will get off days vs the Likes of Sale and other LHP studs.

Saying Rasmus will be fine against lefties OR righties, is overly optimistic.

The guy has had two or three decent seasons out of seven and he is coming off a poor year. Let's hope he can bounce back, but better not to put him in situations where the numbers say he will fail.

[El Gordo]

Not 1 good LHP in the A.L East. Rasmus will be fine . Rasmus will get off days vs the Likes of Sale and other LHP studs.

As far as I can tell Rasmus was in the AL East last season and didn't do so well v LHP. Has it really changed that much?

[wildcard]

LF De Aza

3B Machado

CF Jones

1B Davis

DH Pearce

C Wieters

SS Hardy

RF Rasmus

2B Schoop

Joseph/Flaherty/Young/Lough

No straight platoons to start the year off. Delmon Young DH's against LHP with Pearce taking LF or RF.

I can see Pearce batting 5th gives the lineup a more powerful 3-4-5 middle of the order but I don't like Manny;s low OBP batting 2nd. That is why I put Pearce batting 2nd and Manny 5th.

[PaulFolk]

He hit there for us plenty towards the end of last season, so I can totally see Buck putting him in that spot against LHP.

Young only started three games all last season in the cleanup spot: Aug. 3, Aug. 5, and Sept. 26.

[oriole]

I can see Pearce batting 5th gives the lineup a more powerful 3-4-5 middle of the order but I don't like Manny;s low OBP batting 2nd. That is why I put Pearce batting 2nd and Manny 5th.

Pearce will likely regress and Machado will likely improve. Your reasoning makes sense but I think Buck keeps Machado there, at least to start the season.

[Three Run Homer]

I think the original post has the right premise: both De Aza and Rasmus need platoon partners. Delmon Young solves half of the problem, but David Lough is not a good fit for this team as a fourth outfielder assuming we sign Rasmus.

Alvarez is one possibility as a platoon outfielder. Alex Hassan and Matt Tuiasosopo are also possibilities among players currently in the organization. We could try to trade David Lough for his right handed equivalent, or take a flier on a bounceback year from someone like Scott Hairston.

[weams]

I think the original post has the right premise: both De Aza and Rasmus need platoon partners. Delmon Young solves half of the problem, but David Lough is not a good fit for this team as a fourth outfielder assuming we sign Rasmus.

Alvarez is one possibility as a platoon outfielder. Alex Hassan and Matt Tuiasosopo are also possibilities among players currently in the organization. We could try to trade David Lough for his right handed equivalent, or take a flier on a bounceback year from someone like Scott Hairston.

The short side platoon partner gets 4 starts a month.

[Say O!]

The short side platoon partner gets 4 starts a month.

Good perspective. So looking at less than 100 ABs/year. And trust that Buck can manage the high leverage / late game situations with pinch-hitters for guys like Rasmus.

[PA724_Oriole]

Other than the Pearce of last year, I wouldn't want anyone but Machado hitting in the two spot.

And I think Davis should be fifth until he finds his swing again.

De Aza

Machado

Pearce

Jones

Davis

Hardy

Wieters

Schoop

Rasmus

[ChuckS]

The short side platoon partner gets 4 starts a month.

This would suggest that 1 in 7 starters is left handed. This does not seem right to me as most rotations have 1 or 2 lefties.

[21xxxv]

:thumbsup1:

LF De Aza

3B Machado

CF Jones

1B Davis

DH Pearce

C Wieters

SS Hardy

RF Rasmus

2B Schoop

Joseph/Flaherty/Young/Lough

No straight platoons to start the year off. Delmon Young DH's against LHP with Pearce taking LF or RF.

[El Gordo]

LF De Aza

3B Machado

1B Davis

CF Jones

C Wieters

DH Pearce

RF Rasmus

SS Hardy

2B Schoop

[LA2]

LF De Aza

3B Machado

CF Jones

1B Davis

DH Pearce

C Wieters

SS Hardy

RF Rasmus

2B Schoop

Joseph/Flaherty/Young/Lough

No straight platoons to start the year off. Delmon Young DH's against LHP with Pearce taking LF or RF.

That sounds about right to me. There would be tweaking of the 4-5-6 if Davis can't get back on track, Pearce regresses significantly, or Wieters fails; in the last instance, maybe he goes down to 7 and Hardy moves up to 6.

[Orioles0615]

There is no way Alvarez makes the team and then is only used as part time. If he is a legit prospect he needs to play all the time at AAA or at MLB..