I’m about ready to give up on DJ Stewart

[MurphDogg]

7 minutes ago, sportsfan8703 said:

I don’t see a reason why Stewart and McKenna aren’t our 4th/5th OFs next season.

With Mullins holding his own against lefties and Hays being a reasonable fill in in center, I think McKenna is more of a luxury than necessity when both are healthy. I expect him to be on the Norfolk/Baltimore shuttle, just like this season.

[Tony-OH]

15 hours ago, Frobby said:

Am I allowed to be happy that Stewart is heating up?    He still has some time to pull his numbers up to respectability.   

Stewart always seems to have one stretch of extreme hot hitting. It still doesn't take away from the flawed player that he is at the major league level. Maybe he can get and stay scorching hot and have some trade value this offseason? That's really the best case scenario.

[sportsfan8703]

3 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Stewart always seems to have one stretch of extreme hot hitting. It still doesn't take away from the flawed player that he is at the major league level. Maybe he can get and stay scorching hot and have some trade value this offseason? That's really the best case scenario.

He’s not bad to have around considering how much Hays and Santander are hurt. Plus Diaz being Diaz. 
 

He has a career .733 OPS, not great, but this team has spent a lot of money the last decade on 4th OFs to attempt to do that. Kim, Rasmus, and an older Delmon Young. He’s a streaky player, you factor that in as a manager. He’s not the difference between W’s and L’s. He a good insurance policy if we trade Mancini(Nevin and Diaz crapping bed in AAA), and Hays/Santander always being hurt. 

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, sportsfan8703 said:

He’s not bad to have around considering how much Hays and Santander are hurt. Plus Diaz being Diaz. 
 

He has a career .733 OPS, not great, but this team has spent a lot of money the last decade on 4th OFs to attempt to do that. Kim, Rasmus, and an older Delmon Young. He’s a streaky player, you factor that in as a manager. He’s not the difference between W’s and L’s. He a good insurance policy if we trade Mancini(Nevin and Diaz crapping bed in AAA), and Hays/Santander always being hurt. 

He was better to have around before his footspeed tanked this year.  Prior to this season he was an awkward looking outfielder with a knack for unfortunate goofs that was actually serviceable.

Now he seems to be a legitimate liability out there. 

 

[Aristotelian]

I don't love Stewart but if you are going to have a full time DH type, I would rather he be lefty. I think he would be good to keep around as long as he is cheap. He would give us another option should we trade Santander and Mancini while waiting for Kjerstad/Stowers/Haskin. As we as all know, DJ has good OBP and can hit some nice looking home runs, adding up to overall league average offense (99 OPS+). Profile reminds me a bit of Terry Crowley who was my favorite player as a kid because I saw him hit a big homer off Goose Gossage.

Once he is arb eligible he would be a nontender candidate but DFA in 2021 seems extreme. 

[DrungoHazewood]

2 hours ago, sportsfan8703 said:

He’s not bad to have around considering how much Hays and Santander are hurt. Plus Diaz being Diaz. 
 

He has a career .733 OPS, not great, but this team has spent a lot of money the last decade on 4th OFs to attempt to do that. Kim, Rasmus, and an older Delmon Young. He’s a streaky player, you factor that in as a manager. He’s not the difference between W’s and L’s. He a good insurance policy if we trade Mancini(Nevin and Diaz crapping bed in AAA), and Hays/Santander always being hurt. 

Stewart would be a lot better off if it was 1979 and teams had like eight position players on the bench.  Earl might have turned him into a Jim Dwyer.  Or Terry Crowley.  Pat Kelly.  Today with all the pitchers it's really hard to keep a guy whose only positive skill is hitting some righties.

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

49 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Stewart would be a lot better off if it was 1979 and teams had like eight position players on the bench.  Earl might have turned him into a Jim Dwyer.  Or Terry Crowley.  Pat Kelly.  Today with all the pitchers it's really hard to keep a guy whose only positive skill is hitting some righties.

I was thinking of DJ as more of a left handed Benny Ayala. But yeah, I've had the thought that DJ could have been a solid role player back in the 70's and 80's, when teams had multiple OF/DH/1B types sitting on the bench.

DJ might have even ended up a fan favorite because he would have been used sparingly. Now when you have perhaps one backup outfielder you need a player closer to Ryan McKenna, but preferably hits a little better than McKenna. You really can't be a total liability defensively and be a reserve outfielder in 2021. 

[DrungoHazewood]

42 minutes ago, OsFanSinceThe80s said:

I was thinking of DJ as more of a left handed Benny Ayala. But yeah, I've had the thought that DJ could have been a solid role player back in the 70's and 80's, when teams had multiple OF/DH/1B types sitting on the bench.

DJ might have even ended up a fan favorite because he would have been used sparingly. Now when you have perhaps one backup outfielder you need a player closer to Ryan McKenna, but preferably hits a little better than McKenna. You really can't be a total liability defensively and be a reserve outfielder in 2021. 

Terry Crowley spent 15 years in the majors as a player.  He never had 300 PAs in a season and he never played 500 innings in the field (1400-odd is a full season).  The last 10 years of his carer he was mostly a 150 PA PH/DH who'd occasionally play a little first or LF.  That type of player is completely extinct.  But would have suited Stewart.

[Pickles]

On 8/12/2021 at 9:37 AM, DrungoHazewood said:

I think that most of our draft analyses are ham-fisted.  Do we grade based in picks vs consensus?  Then what of differing strategies like going below-slot to pick better players later?  The consensus is attempting to rank players solely on how good they are.  If we grade based on who comes up with the most MLB production you're not grading the draft, you're grading a combination of (draft + development + injuries + luck + situation). 

I tend to grade by asking if the player picked seemed reasonable on the day of the draft based on the publicly information we have.  But we don't even have all of the information to make that meaningful.

Well, I'm interested in Frobby's analysis to come.  I'd like to see how he approaches the issue.

Three Run Homers point that it is kind of silly to grade picks as "good" or "busts" when they're 95% irrelevant is well-taken.

You're talking about judging picks at the time they're made, whereas I think Frobby- and myself- are far more interested in judging them in hindsight.

But you make a good point, in doing so you're now judging other things, including what might be for all we know just as important as the actual selection, development.  

[Tony-OH]

Can someone start one of these threads about Keegan Akin and hope to get him going? lol

[Pickles]

4 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Can someone start one of these threads about Keegan Akin and hope to get him going? lol

Apparently all it takes is me defending a guy for years and then finally going, "You know, I don't think he has much of a ML future" to make him go scorching hot.

The home runs are expected.  But yesterday, the guy has the gall to make such a fine running catch the announcer initially thought it was Santander, before correcting himself to say Stewart and chuckle in disbelief.  

It's almost like he read this thread and decided to shove it up my butt.  Good for him.

[Frobby]

On 8/13/2021 at 10:18 AM, Tony-OH said:

Stewart always seems to have one stretch of extreme hot hitting. It still doesn't take away from the flawed player that he is at the major league level. Maybe he can get and stay scorching hot and have some trade value this offseason? That's really the best case scenario.

He’s on a nice little mini-streak now.  In his last 10 games he’s hit .250/.419/.833 with 2 doubles and 4 homers.   BA up to .203, OPS to .711.   Hopefully he stays hot.   

[jabba72]

He lost another flyball in LF almost hitting him in the head again. But I guess his bat is heating up. 

[jamalshw]

1 hour ago, jabba72 said:

He lost another flyball in LF almost hitting him in the head again. But I guess his bat is heating up. 

His absolute inability to play the outfield is the real issue. Is recent hot streak is nice. And the ability to draw a walk is huge, particularly with the average finally over the Mendoza line to bring the OBP up to a solid area. Stewart certainly has a place on the team the rest of the year. He probably also has one next year, but beyond that? Probably not. I also won't lose sleep if he's cut this winter to open space to protect someone with a bit more of a future from the Rule-5 draft. 

All things considered, is bat is okay, but not good enough to make up for the defensive issues nor good enough to take the full-time DH role. Ideally, when you have three strong OF options and a 4th OF that can actually play the OF at an average-or-better level, I'm not sure there's space on the team for a defensive liability OF to get a handful of ABs. 

Right now, he's an insurance policy for Hays and Santander. But I'd rather see McKenna moving forward (even if his strong AAA showing hasn't translated in the Majors). And I think soon, Neustrom, Stowers, Watson, Rizer...and eventually Cowser, Kjerstad (if he can ever get on the field), and others make Stewart obsolete possibly as this winter and almost certainly by the end of 2022. 

[Moose Milligan]

If he could hit .250 his on base percentage would probably be close to .400 or over it.  

I agree with @jamalshw, it's unfortunate but his defense makes him a liability.