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TT: Why is Jimmy Paredes still the everyday DH?


Tony-OH

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Jimmy Paredes was a nice little story at the beginning of the year. He was the 2015 version of Steve Pearce for a while but since May 20th, Jimmy Paredes has been well, Jimmy Paredes. In his last 60 games, through 232 PAs, Paredes is slashing .247/.280/.338/.618 with a 73-13 K-BB ratio. He has 12 extra base hits during this time frame including four home runs.

In case you are wondering, that's pretty close to his career numbers (.242/.279/.330/.609) coming into this season. So basically Paredes is back to being Paredes.

I don't see how a team that is starting Paredes at DH and a combination of Lake/Lough/Reimold in LF can consider itself a player contender. Why not give Henry Urrutia a shot and platoon him with Reimold at DH? Urrutia is not tearing it up in AAA, but he won't strike out as much as Paredes and we might as well see what he can do at this point. I'm also fine with promoting Dariel Alvarez and putting him in RF and move Parra to LF.

Why not see if these guys can be a shot in the arm?

Honestly, as hot as Trey Mancini has been in AA I'd even consider bringing him up to DH though I think they should promote him to AAA and let him finish out the year there.

Paredes was a nice story, but unfortunately the clock has struck 12 and he's back to being a pumpkin.

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Watching Paredes, as a totally untrained eye, it seems to me that he has plenty of bat speed. The biggest issue I see with him now is that he refuses to hit the ball to left field on stuff that is away. Earlier in the season, he did that on a regular basis. I'm not sure what has been "unclicked" in his approach, but someone needs to flip that switch back.

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Watching Paredes, as a totally untrained eye, it seems to me that he has plenty of bat speed. The biggest issue I see with him now is that he refuses to hit the ball to left field on stuff that is away. Earlier in the season, he did that on a regular basis. I'm not sure what has been "unclicked" in his approach, but someone needs to flip that switch back.

Yep, right on the mark here, good observation. The one thing I really liked was how he was going opposite field early in the season and taking those singles and even driving the ball that way on occasion. Now he pulls so much they shift on him.

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Watching Paredes, as a totally untrained eye, it seems to me that he has plenty of bat speed. The biggest issue I see with him now is that he refuses to hit the ball to left field on stuff that is away. Earlier in the season, he did that on a regular basis. I'm not sure what has been "unclicked" in his approach, but someone needs to flip that switch back.

Opposite field was his strength earlier in the season, and parts of last season as well (I remember his homer in the AL East clincher game was opposite field too). Now he is just trying to pull everything and never seems to cut down on his swing, even with two strikes in situations where he needs to make contact. I still root for the guy but my optimism is fading due to his uncompromising approach.

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Yep, right on the mark here, good observation. The one thing I really liked was how he was going opposite field early in the season and taking those singles and even driving the ball that way on occasion. Now he pulls so much they shift on him.

I am sure that Coolbaugh is working with him, it's too bad he hasn't corrected it.

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Honestly, as hot as Trey Mancini has been in AA I'd even consider bringing him up to DH though I think they should promote him to AAA and let him finish out the year there.

Does he have any holes in his swing when you watch him? I've only seen video a few times and of course it's the highlights but he looks to have a compact swing and he's quick through the hitting zone. I wonder what he does with a good CU and what's his discipline like.

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It was me and this isn't an accurate reflection of the interaction. You wrote that "he had been pretty bad this year". I wrote that a player making ML minimum who has put up 1.2 oWAR can't possibly be said to have had "a pretty bad year". I also wrote that he has now had approximately half a year's PA. You made the point that projecting double that in a year with the way he is playing now would be unwise. I agreed, granted you your point, and reiterated that he hasn't had a bad year with what is already in the bank. You disappeared rather than back down one iota on your original hyperbolic statement which appears to be your schtick.

Not that I expect a response to this. You don't do compromise or modification from what I've seen.

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Just because someone has had value on their contract, doesn't mean they had a good year. A .5 WAR year at 500K would have a valuable contract.

You want to dismiss the fact that he's a .8 WAR player, because his offense is all that matters. But in terms of value, that is what he produced this year. We paid for both the offensive production and defensive production.

Jimmy Parades has been a .8 WAR player this year, and has platooned his way to a 1 oWAR season. That isn't good production from a primary offensive position, even if we got value from that 500K. I don't know what else to tell you.

In terms of me disappearing, I don't disappear from threads. Message boards aren't really serious business where I need to "back down" or step back and disappear into a timeout because I'm on tilt. If you take it that seriously, that's fine. I probably just stopped posting in the thread because the game was over or just missed your post within the constant posting going on in the thread.

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I'm not changing the parameters. A .8 WAR season is a pretty bad season. A 1 oWAR season that required we platoon/sit to stop from falling even further, is a pretty bad season from your DH. It's not the level of production a team needs from such an offensive oriented position. The fact that Parades at least had stretches where he was good, means keep him on the team until roster expands for all I care. I never advocated cutting him. But he has not given us adequate production from the DH spot this year. And at this point, i have no idea what type of season you think Parades had in terms of production. It's not good according to you, but it's also not bad. It seems like you're only position is that .8 WAR was "economic."

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You seem to want to say that more at bats would just result in his WAR going down since it can go either way and he is playing poorly right now. You have no way of knowing that. In absence of knowing that, you have to look at what he has done in what period of time.

Look at how the O's have been playing him lately. No more at bats from the right side. And lately we haven't been putting him in the lineup at all. So it's not really a logical leap to argue that if we were batting him against lefties, and if we were forcing him out there, his oWAR would look even worse. Because that's clearly the decision Buck has reached, even if it's not in those analytical terms.

In the end, he's a less than 1 WAR player, 1 oWAR player, who, from the DH position, we have had to platoon and sit to get that .8 WAR/1 oWAR season from. That's not "average" production. That's not how a team with the "Orioles' payroll scheme," can construct a roster and hope to have success.

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LOL, yes because a platoon has never ever worked and resulted in average to good years for each player in the platoon. You're taking Buck's current approach while he is dealing with a slump and assuming it is the way things will be forever. Not very analytical or logic based for a guy who purports to be both. If/when Paredes starts hitting again, Buck will play him more JUST LIKE HE DID THE FIRST TWO TIMES HE HIT WELL FOR A MONTH EACH TIME.

It isn't hard to just say "I overstated it. He hasn't had a bad year. He just hasn't been as good as I want my DH to be." He hasn't had a bad year. It has been average. You're just stubbornly ignoring facts at this point. Or don't you believe in the efficacy of OPS+?

Out of curiosity, what would you have proposed to do with the DH this season instead of Jimmy Paredes using the current payroll limitations and roster? I advocated signing Cruz despite the length of the deal but once they didn't, Paredes has been better in the DH role than I expected to get based on the roster makeup. I was worried it would be Delmon Young all year.

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I'm not saying platoons can't work. I like platoons. But you shouldn't be platooning your DH, at least not with exclusive DH players. The DH position needs to give you adequate offensive production. Not production above whatever 500K is in WAR production. But a certain objective level of offensive production that justifies carrying somebody who can't help you in the field. Parades, hasn't given us that level of production. He's been, according to you, an average offensive player, who we can't play in the field and can't hit lefties and we have had to sit. So the rest of the team has had to be constructed around that.

And Parades might get hot again. I hope he hits a home run every at bat the rest of the year. But that has nothing to do with how he has played to today. Today, he is a .8 WAR player who has forced us to platoon him and sit him. Whether we paid him 500k or not, doesn't change the level of production he gave us.

And I don't know what we should have done. Parades may have been the best bet. You seem to think I'm advocating Parades shouldn't be the DH or on the 25 man roster or whatever. Parades might be the best that we can do, giving our payroll limitations. That's fine. But we need to address that in the future, because this can't be the level of production we get from the DH. You can't have your DH and corner outfielders giving us this level of oWAR, regardless of how much you paid for it.

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