Jordan Westburg 2023

[Pickles]

2 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

And neither have a future with the team.

I like Urias. I touted him on here before anyone but his future is not with this team and btw, there would still be at bats there for him.

One of these guys should have been dealt in the offseason. 

If you had dealt Mateo this offseason you'd have left a lot of meat on the bone.

[Sports Guy]

8 minutes ago, Pickles said:

These guys for the most part are 26, 27, 28 years old and were guys who did not have traditional exposure to the big leagues.  Hays was rushed; Santander was a Rule 5, Mateo DFA, Urias was DFA.  Their track records are not as spotty as you consistently try to paint them to be because they simply don't have these long track records.

Take Santander as an example.  Over the last four years he's played about 85% of the games and put up a 115 OPS+.  Has he missed time?  Yes, but that's not a "spotty" track record imo.

So yeah, I hope Cowser is a better player than that.  But there's no guarantee that he is; most importantly, immediately.

When you aren’t durable and not available, you have a spotty track record. 

[Pickles]

Just now, Sports Guy said:

You can say what you want but Elias isn’t going to keep these guys around for much longer. He comes from an organization that essentially home grows its whole team or at least many of the key members.

They don’t do much in FA and they make trades.

That is what he will do here.  He loves his prospects and his prospect rankings. He’s going to show them off.

He’s not doing what he is doing to turn around and spend a lot of money on these guys. 

Guys are going to get moved for sure.  I think it will be a mixture.  He'll trade from the young vets and from the prospects.

[Pickles]

Just now, Sports Guy said:

When you aren’t durable and not available, you have a spotty track record. 

85% availability over four seasons is spotty?

[Sports Guy]

8 minutes ago, Pickles said:

If you had dealt Mateo this offseason you'd have left a lot of meat on the bone.

We’ll see. He has been dreadfully bad this month. I’m not sure he’s much more than the 3ish WAR player he was last year and signs are that his defense, as I said it would, has fallen off some.

Now, I will say this about those guys.,I wouldn’t have traded them for s and gs. You had to get value back but since they are so good, I would think the value is there.

Edited May 17, 2023 by Sports Guy

[Safelykept]

46 minutes ago, Pickles said:

I think the bigger thing is staggering them.  You don't want 3-4 guys making adjustments all at once.

Absolutely Bring them up give them whatever  ABs you can. Short of injuries nobody is going to get more than platoon time. After 20 to 30 Abs evaluate and if its worth keeping them up  keep them up If not send back down to Norfolk to keep them getting ABs Hopefully we find a way to rotate Cowser and Westburg into the mix

 

 

[Sports Guy]

3 minutes ago, Pickles said:

85% availability over four seasons is spotty?

He was available and durable last year. That’s great. Before that, not so much. His CAREER says he’s not a reliable guy.

His recent history says he might be going forward. He needs to do it for more than 1 year and btw, in that one year, he had a 773 OPS(to his credit, offense was down) and a poor OBP.

His OBP is another issue.

His career OPS+ of 105 is fine but nothing that you can’t replace if you are as good at eyeing and developing talent as everyone thinks Elias is.

Edited May 17, 2023 by Sports Guy

[Frobby]

3 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

You can say what you want but Elias isn’t going to keep these guys around for much longer. He comes from an organization that essentially home grows its whole team or at least many of the key members.

They don’t do much in FA and they make trades.

That is what he will do here.  He loves his prospects and his prospect rankings. He’s going to show them off.

He’s not doing what he is doing to turn around and spend a lot of money on these guys. 

I’m losing the thread of this conversation.  What guys are we talking about, and when do you think Elias will jettison them?

[Pickles]

1 minute ago, Sports Guy said:

He was available and durable last year. That’s great. Before that, not so much. His CAREER says he’s not a reliable guy.

His recent history says he might be going forward. He needs to do it for more than 1 year and btw, in that one year, he has a 773 OPS and a poor OBP.

His OBP is another issue.

He's played full seasons in 2020, 2022, and 2023 so far.  He missed about 1/3 of 2021.

Again, he's played about 85% of the games over a four season stretch.  That isn't Cal Ripken but that isn't Jeffrey Hammonds either.

[Pickles]

5 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

We’ll see. He has been dreadfully bad thus month. I’m not sure he’s much more than the 3ish WAR player he was last year and signs are that his defense, as I said it would, has fallen off some.

Now, I will say this about those guys.,I wouldn’t have traded them for s and gs. You had to get value back but since they are so good, I would think the value is there.

With Mateo it is a question of how valuable is he going to be, not whether he is going to be valuable.

If he ends up with another 3+ WAR season under his belt he'll have trade value, more than he had last winter imo.  If he ends up higher than that, and he's on pace for much higher, but the bat is tailing off, he'll have a lot more trade value than he had last offseason.

[jamalshw]

2 minutes ago, Safelykept said:

Absolutely Bring them up give them whatever  ABs you can. Short of injuries nobody is going to get more than platoon time. After 20 to 30 Abs evaluate and if its worth keeping them up  keep them up If not send back down to Norfolk to keep them getting ABs Hopefully we find a way to rotate Cowser and Westburg into the mix

 

 

I think there are ABs for Cowser and Westburg on this team right now. You could bring up both and send out O'Hearn and Vavra.  O'Hearn doesn't have much value on the team if Santander is going to play 1B even when O'Hearn is in the lineup. And while I like Vavra, he's redundant with Frazier on the team both being LHH contact first guys that play corner OF and 2B. With that said, in order for Cowser and Frazier to get ABs, Frazier loses the most playing time. 

Cowser goes to RF most days and Westburg plays 2B primarily. You can rotate Frazier in to get a day off for both of them on occasion (along with McKenna). With Mateo slumping Ortiz gets some of the time at SS and splits with Mateo. He can slide to 3B (or Westburg to 3B and Ortiz to 2B) to spell Henderson on occasion. At least until Urias comes back there are ABs to be had for both. 

The bench becomes: McCann, Frazier, Mateo/Ortiz, and McKenna. 

Once Urias is back, we can see where we are, but it's quite possible there's another injury that helps solve the "problem."

[Sports Guy]

4 minutes ago, Pickles said:

He's played full seasons in 2020, 2022, and 2023 so far.  He missed about 1/3 of 2021.

Again, he's played about 85% of the games over a four season stretch.  That isn't Cal Ripken but that isn't Jeffrey Hammonds either.

He played 37 of 60 games in 2020 and ended the year hurt.

But 2020 doesn’t really count for me, good or bad, anyway because you just don’t know what would have happened over the course of a whole year.  He had 165 at bats that year and had an 890 OPS. His OPS has never even been 780 in any other season.  Seems to be an outlier to me.

Edited May 17, 2023 by Sports Guy

[Sports Guy]

1 minute ago, Pickles said:

With Mateo it is a question of how valuable is he going to be, not whether he is going to be valuable.

If he ends up with another 3+ WAR season under his belt he'll have trade value, more than he had last winter imo.  If he ends up higher than that, and he's on pace for much higher, but the bat is tailing off, he'll have a lot more trade value than he had last offseason.

Lots of ifs there

[sportsfan8703]

53 minutes ago, Pickles said:

Eh.  The thing about the slumps of established big leaguers, and the adjustments that rookies make to the big leagues, is that slumps end.  Not everyone successfully transitions to the major leagues.

When Stowers goes 2-30 with 12 Ks we don't know when that is going to end; when the light is going to turn on.

When Santander goes 2-30 with 12 Ks you can feel confident that he's going to start raking real soon.

Santander has a track record in the MLB.  

[Pickles]

3 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

He played 37 of 60 games in 2020 and ended the year hurt.

But 2020 doesn’t really count for me, good or bad, anyway because you just don’t know what would have happened over the course of a whole year.  He had 165 at bats that year and had an 890 OPS. His OPS has never even been 780 in any other season.  Seems to be an outlier to me.

You're right about that.  I forgot how many games were played in 2020.  So it's more like 80% over the last four season.

I mean I guess my issue is if he's healthy he should be playing everyday for this team, or the equivalence.

You want him playing 80% of the time when he's healthy with the idea being that is what you can "depend" on him for.

I don't think that actually keeps him healthier though.  He misses games when he's hurt; he doesn't need to miss games to not get hurt.