O’s claim IF Hanser Alberto from Yankees; DFA Susac

[Frobby]

I think Alberto is a better hitter than Cruz, though similarly undisciplined.    Cruz had a better glove.     

[interloper]

Alberto remains a hilarious, weird baseball player. If he could find a way to hit for a little more power he'd be exponentially more valuable. 

.306/.325/.402/.727 with 5 homers.

But he's already bumped Rio squarely to the bench most nights and I don't hate his defense at 2B or 3B, surprisingly. 

[DrungoHazewood]

2 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I think Alberto is a better hitter than Cruz, though similarly undisciplined.    Cruz had a better glove.     

In '00 Deivi hit .302/.318/.449 with 61 extra base hits, but just 13 walks, and was a +4 shortstop.  But that was as good as he ever was.  When the O's signed him he was coming off two seasons of -12 and -14 defense with 81 OPS+es.

[DrungoHazewood]

1 minute ago, interloper said:

Alberto remains a hilarious, weird baseball player. If he could find a way to hit for a little more power he'd be exponentially more valuable. 

.306/.325/.402/.727 with 5 homers.

But he's already bumped Rio squarely to the bench most nights and I don't hate his defense at 2B or 3B, surprisingly. 

If we're going to have another couple years of rebuilding I'd highly encourage Elias to target hilarious, weird players when he's looking for random placeholders.  My #1 target for this coming offseason would be Willians Astudillo.

[interloper]

By the way, Susac is OPSing .807 in AAA for KC, but is on the 7-day IL. 

[interloper]

1 minute ago, DrungoHazewood said:

If we're going to have another couple years of rebuilding I'd highly encourage Elias to target hilarious, weird players when he's looking for random placeholders.  My #1 target for this coming offseason would be Willians Astudillo.

Oh man. Yes. 

[TommyPickles]

Honestly, Alberto is having a great year. 

[Moose Milligan]

29 minutes ago, TommyPickles said:

Honestly, Alberto is having a great year. 

I guess when you take expectations into account, yeah, he's having a great year.  I don't think any of us expected him to hit .300.  

Sure, it's a hollow .300 but it's still fun.  Hanser is a fun ballplayer.  And he'd probably have a home on a team that had guys with better on base percentages around him in the lineup.

[DrungoHazewood]

2 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

I guess when you take expectations into account, yeah, he's having a great year.  I don't think any of us expected him to hit .300.  

Sure, it's a hollow .300 but it's still fun.  Hanser is a fun ballplayer.  And he'd probably have a home on a team that had guys with better on base percentages around him in the lineup.

He wishes he'd been born in the long era prior to 1980 or 1990 when batting average was king, and nobody paid much attention to OBP, SLG or certainly not OPS.  The time when Doc Cramer could finish in the top 10 in the MVP voting with a 105 OPS+ because he hit .332.  Cramer had a handful of MVP votes in four different years where he was a below-average hitter, and was an All Star in four years where he was a below-average hitter.  Because he hit .300.  He got MVP votes in three straight years in the 40s with OPSes between .684-.710, as a a late-30s CFer.

[bobmc]

3 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

If we're going to have another couple years of rebuilding I'd highly encourage Elias to target hilarious, weird players when he's looking for random placeholders.  My #1 target for this coming offseason would be Willians Astudillo.

I'm voting for a more familiar name - Ryan Ripken.  Replace Davis with him.  He's not weird or hilarious but that family name - ahhhhhh!  We missed the boat on Little Yaz - now go make things right!

It might even get @atomic to come back to the fold!   

Edited July 17, 2019 by bobmc

[atomic]

5 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

I guess when you take expectations into account, yeah, he's having a great year.  I don't think any of us expected him to hit .300.  

Sure, it's a hollow .300 but it's still fun.  Hanser is a fun ballplayer.  And he'd probably have a home on a team that had guys with better on base percentages around him in the lineup.

Even with it being a hollow .300 he still leads position players in WAR.  

[interloper]

33 minutes ago, atomic said:

Even with it being a hollow .300 he still leads position players in WAR.  

That's because his defense has been pretty good. I suspect if Mancini was playing 1B all season instead of RF, he would be surpassing Hanser. 

[Ohfan67]

We know now that hitting .300 doesn’t contribute to runs scored as much as a high OBP or slugging, but it’s still a cool feat. I think being able to say “I hit .300 for a full year in the bigs” is still worthy of a free beer at the bar. 

[interloper]

1 minute ago, Ohfan67 said:

We know now that hitting .300 doesn’t contribute to runs scored as much as a high OBP or slugging, but it’s still a cool feat. I think being able to say “I hit .300 for a full year in the bigs” is still worthy of a free beer at the bar. 

I'll be bummed if he doesn't finish the season at .300 or better. 

[Can_of_corn]

3 minutes ago, interloper said:

I'll be bummed if he doesn't finish the season at .300 or better. 

I feel the same way about the O's record.