Mountcastle is heating up (August edition)

[Big Mac]

46 minutes ago, MurphDogg said:

Nah, he is pretty far back.

Behind Adolis Garcia, Luis Garcia, Casey Mize, Arozarena, Eric Haase, among others.

Adolis Garcia's star has fallen quite a bit, I'm not sure how far back Mountcastle is from him at this point.  He's definitely behind Arozarena and Andrew Vaughn on the hitting side, probably also Haase and Akil Baddoo.  For pitchers, I'd put him behind Casey Mize and quite a few others (Luis Garcia, James Kaprielian, McClanahan, Tarik Skubal and Dane Dunning). 

[MurphDogg]

35 minutes ago, Big Mac said:

Adolis Garcia's star has fallen quite a bit, I'm not sure how far back Mountcastle is from him at this point.  He's definitely behind Arozarena and Andrew Vaughn on the hitting side, probably also Haase and Akil Baddoo.  For pitchers, I'd put him behind Casey Mize and quite a few others (Luis Garcia, James Kaprielian, McClanahan, Tarik Skubal and Dane Dunning). 

Yeah, I was just throwing out a handful of names. Mountcastle isn't a contender for the award, which is fine. I imagine that one or both of whichever local writer votes for the award may throw him a third-place vote, but that will be it.

His left-field defense was disappointing and I wonder how much that affected his hitting, with his hitting markedly improved since May 1, when he mostly stopped playing outfield.

I wonder whether he gets significant reps in the outfield in Spring Training. With the emergence of Mullins as an everyday centerfielder shifting Hays to a corner outfield spot, Mountcastle shouldn't ever really need to play outfield.

His .286/.334/.548 line since May 1st has pretty much matched my reasonable best-case expectations for this season, probably the only hitter to match those expectations (besides Mullins who exceeded them).

His first base defense is fine, he doesn't seem to have much of a DH penalty, which is a plus (a lot of players hit worse as DH than when they play the field).

Totally comfortable penciling him into the middle of the order 1B/DH spot for the next 5 years.

[emmett16]

Mountcastle’s  OPS is up to .803 after last night.  Been climbing steadily for a while now.  Good news. 

[Frobby]

Apparently nobody told Mountcastle (or Santander) that the team is supposed to be slumping right now.   

[Moose Milligan]

Andrew Vaughn has really picked up the pace from where he started.  He's putting together a good rookie campaign.

Arozarena is hitting .275/.354/.455 for an .809 OPS.  He's got 3.0 WAR so far this year.

Mountcastle's WAR is 0.7.  Currently at a .803 OPS.  

He's really going to have to kill it in September to get rookie of the year.  IMO, he'll have to finish with 30+ homers, 80+ RBI to get consideration.  Partially because he won't win the WAR race (IMO, most awards these days are just chalked up to the WAR leader) and partially because he plays for a team that no one cares about and is only getting attention for the wrong reasons.

I guess it could happen for him but he's got a steep hill to climb.

 

[Sports Guy]

He’s not winning ROY and probably won’t even be in the top 3.

But so what, right?  What matters is that he ends well, gets beyond his horrible start, continues to gain experience at first base and continues to show he is and can be comfortable over there.

I don’t feel he has some ultra high WAR ceiling but he can be valuable for a while.  He’s certainly a piece to either help with the ML team or as a trade piece.  

[Frobby]

17 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Andrew Vaughn has really picked up the pace from where he started.  He's putting together a good rookie campaign.

Arozarena is hitting .275/.354/.455 for an .809 OPS.  He's got 3.0 WAR so far this year.

Mountcastle's WAR is 0.7.  Currently at a .803 OPS.  

He's really going to have to kill it in September to get rookie of the year.  IMO, he'll have to finish with 30+ homers, 80+ RBI to get consideration.  Partially because he won't win the WAR race (IMO, most awards these days are just chalked up to the WAR leader) and partially because he plays for a team that no one cares about and is only getting attention for the wrong reasons.

I guess it could happen for him but he's got a steep hill to climb.

 

Putting WAR to one side, Mountcastle has an uphill climb because all of his value comes from offense.   Arozarena is a very solid OF so that gives him an edge.  Also, his OPS is more driven by a good OBP than Mountcastle’s.  

I’d agree though that it’s premature to count MC out.   1.015 OPS in June, 1.275 so far in August.   Let’s say he stays hot and puts up a 1.000 OPS the rest of the way.  That probably puts him in .850 range for the year, which would be hard to ignore.   We can worry about it if and when he does it.  
 

[Sports Guy]

3 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Putting WAR to one side, Mountcastle has an uphill climb because all of his value comes from offense.   Arozarena is a very solid OF so that gives him an edge.  Also, his OPS is more driven by a good OBP than Mountcastle’s.  

I’d agree though that it’s premature to count MC out.   1.015 OPS in June, 1.275 so far in August.   Let’s say he stays hot and puts up a 1.000 OPS the rest of the way.  That probably puts him in .850 range for the year, which would be hard to ignore.   We can worry about it if and when he does it.  
 

And don’t think what Arozarena did in the playoffs last year won’t factor into the minds of some voters.  It doesn’t/shouldn’t have anything to do with it but that doesn’t mean it won’t.

[RZNJ]

He had over a 1.000 OPS in June and here again in Augusts.   Not even close in May or July.   I want to become a believer and it looks like he's the real deal but I'll wait and see what he does in September.   He's either a .800 OPS type guy which is fine and we can hand him 1B for now.   Or maybe he's something more but my gut feeling is he's not going to ever be a .900 OPS type of guy.     A .900 OPS in September might give me some hope.

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

23 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

He had over a 1.000 OPS in June and here again in Augusts.   Not even close in May or July.   I want to become a believer and it looks like he's the real deal but I'll wait and see what he does in September.   He's either a .800 OPS type guy which is fine and we can hand him 1B for now.   Or maybe he's something more but my gut feeling is he's not going to ever be a .900 OPS type of guy.     A .900 OPS in September might give me some hope.

Mountcastle is going to have a hard time being a .900 OPS type hitter with his low walk rate. Mountcastle has to maintain a high BABIP and avoid slumping like he has in April and July this year to remain at a .900 OPS level.