2024 Ongoing Lineup Thread

[emmett16]

23 minutes ago, Bahama O's Fan said:

I bet the Red Sox 2B will have the day off after catching Gunnar's liner. His hand was on fire!

As soon as he fielded it I said to my wife “that kid just broke his hand”.  Wouldn’t be surprised if that’s in fact the case.  He was in obvious pain. 

[spleen1015]

Just now, emmett16 said:

As soon as he fielded it I said to my wife “that kid just broke his hand”.  Wouldn’t be surprised if that’s in fact the case.  He was in obvious pain. 

Dude looked in pain and pretty worried to me.

[Bahama O's Fan]

4 minutes ago, spleen1015 said:

Dude looked in pain and pretty worried to me.

Did he stay in and finish the game? I can't remember. I don't know their roster that well.

[interloper]

55 minutes ago, Bahama O's Fan said:

Did he stay in and finish the game? I can't remember. I don't know their roster that well.

Reyes was the 2B and was pinch hit for, then Rafaela moved from CF to 2B. 

[Brooks The Great]

19 hours ago, Just Regular said:

Last Friday afternoon Jake Rill filed a report Hays was battling an illness.    Obviously he's posted some since then, but I can't say I didn't wonder if some of that was a seed being planted.    If Cowser continues to thrive in the coming weeks, Hays will be the most sensitive #RisingTide scenario the organization has to manage with a very fine player.

Mayo over Westburg (less career tenure), and/or Kjerstad over O'Hearn (not a long-term Oriole) will be lighter lifts in the clubhouse if/when they occur.

Mayo's not going to replace Westburg this season. Westburg is too valuable as a defender at multiple IF positions, and he's going to show everyone that he's a quality hitter as well.

Mayo may have to be broken in gradually at the DH spot against LHP whenever he's called up. Other than that, injuries will unfortunately be his quickest path to playing time.

I do agree that O'Hearn gets replaced by Kjerstad. O'Hearn is a solid hitter, but Kjerstad is a future potential All Star/Silver Slugger. Need to make that change there at some point this season. I'm not a fan whatsoever of platooning your #4/#5 hitter - that's just not good baseball if you have better options, which this team does. I think Holliday, Cowser, and Westburg will eventually move O'Hearn down the lineup, but either way, Kjerstad is going to be the better bat, and it doesn't make sense to commit to a 30-year old platoon hitter with no defensive value over Kjerstad.

[Bemorewins]

4 minutes ago, Brooks The Great said:

Mayo's not going to replace Westburg this season. Westburg is too valuable as a defender at multiple IF positions, and he's going to show everyone that he's a quality hitter as well.

Mayo may have to be broken in gradually at the DH spot against LHP whenever he's called up. Other than that, injuries will unfortunately be his quickest path to playing time.

I do agree that O'Hearn gets replaced by Kjerstad. O'Hearn is a solid hitter, but Kjerstad is a future potential All Star/Silver Slugger. Need to make that change there at some point this season. I'm not a fan whatsoever of platooning your #4/#5 hitter - that's just not good baseball if you have better options, which this team does. I think Holliday, Cowser, and Westburg will eventually move O'Hearn down the lineup, but either way, Kjerstad is going to be the better bat, and it doesn't make sense to commit to a 30-year old platoon hitter with no defensive value over Kjerstad.

Right now the way things are set up and project going forward into the foreseeable future, Westburg's defensive value is in his ability to play 3B since there will be very few opportunities to play 2B or SS. Gunnar and Holliday will be every day players 150+ per season so they won't require much filling in for barring injury.

[ThisIsBirdland]

5 minutes ago, Brooks The Great said:

Mayo's not going to replace Westburg this season. Westburg is too valuable as a defender at multiple IF positions, and he's going to show everyone that he's a quality hitter as well.

Mayo may have to be broken in gradually at the DH spot against LHP whenever he's called up. Other than that, injuries will unfortunately be his quickest path to playing time.

I do agree that O'Hearn gets replaced by Kjerstad. O'Hearn is a solid hitter, but Kjerstad is a future potential All Star/Silver Slugger. Need to make that change there at some point this season. I'm not a fan whatsoever of platooning your #4/#5 hitter - that's just not good baseball if you have better options, which this team does. I think Holliday, Cowser, and Westburg will eventually move O'Hearn down the lineup, but either way, Kjerstad is going to be the better bat, and it doesn't make sense to commit to a 30-year old platoon hitter with no defensive value over Kjerstad.

Agreed on Westburg over Mayo. Could Westburg lock down 3B this year much like Gunnar locked down SS last year? Mayo will have a place on the team later this year and moving forward, but Westburg may make the 3B defense discussion moot if his arm and range play well enough over there. They certainly look like they're going to give him the opportunity to do so.

I don't think they're moving off of O'Hearn this year. Kjerstad looks great and is a big part of the future, but I don't think Hyde will want to take out the veteran bat, especially given the quality at-bats O'Hearn has been putting up thus far this year.

If it plays out like this I could see Kjerstad and Mayo ultimately replacing Santander and O'Hearn's roles in 2025, or earlier if there's an injury. Mayo comes up sometime this summer to get his bat in the lineup, and Kjerstad comes up when rosters expand.

[Brooks The Great]

10 minutes ago, Bemorewins said:

Right now the way things are set up and project going forward into the foreseeable future, Westburg's defensive value is in his ability to play 3B since there will be very few opportunities to play 2B or SS. Gunnar and Holliday will be every day players 150+ per season so they won't require much filling in for barring injury.

Agreed, ultimately his 3B defense and good bat will make Westburg the everyday 3B the rest of this season and into the future. But the fact he can play an excellent 2B and passable SS are still important, because injuries happen. His defensive versatility makes him quite valuable to any team. 

[Brooks The Great]

6 minutes ago, ThisIsBirdland said:

Agreed on Westburg over Mayo. Could Westburg lock down 3B this year much like Gunnar locked down SS last year? Mayo will have a place on the team later this year and moving forward, but Westburg may make the 3B defense discussion moot if his arm and range play well enough over there. They certainly look like they're going to give him the opportunity to do so.

I don't think they're moving off of O'Hearn this year. Kjerstad looks great and is a big part of the future, but I don't think Hyde will want to take out the veteran bat, especially given the quality at-bats O'Hearn has been putting up thus far this year.

If it plays out like this I could see Kjerstad and Mayo ultimately replacing Santander and O'Hearn's roles in 2025, or earlier if there's an injury. Mayo comes up sometime this summer to get his bat in the lineup, and Kjerstad comes up when rosters expand.

I'll agree to disagree on O'Hearn. There's nothing that will convince me that he's worth keeping Kjerstad blocked. You shouldn't block a bat like Kjerstad's with a platoon hitter. 

[deward]

3 minutes ago, Brooks The Great said:

I'll agree to disagree on O'Hearn. There's nothing that will convince me that he's worth keeping Kjerstad blocked. You shouldn't block a bat like Kjerstad's with a platoon hitter. 

It's probably more likely than not that O'Hearn would outproduce Kjerstad vs RHP this year, which is probably top priority for them given the win-now approach.

[Just Regular]

It is encouraging the first couple weeks O'Hearn is back to looking like Lowenstein after tapering off late last season.

The good version of himself will be hard to unseat from the lineup.

11-0 Mountcastle at 1B, and the DH race to 10 starts is O'Hearn 5, Adley 4 at a midway point.

[ThisIsBirdland]

[Mooreisbetter27]

Love it

[Just Regular]

Brandon Hyde 1-for-1 on the quote he gave out last night.    I will guess the number of occurrences of precisely the same lineup two consecutive games was single digits the last few years.

I wonder why we aren't talking about positional flexibility anymore..

[Bemorewins]

1 minute ago, Just Regular said:

Brandon Hyde 1-for-1 on the quote he gave out last night.    I will guess the number of occurrences of precisely the same lineup two consecutive games was single digits the last few years.

I wonder why we aren't talking about positional flexibility anymore..

The more bluechip guys who come up, especially star caliber talents who are not going to platoon, the less need there is for position flexibility. The Braves don't change lineups nor sub/platoon players and they tend to do wonderful.