Sun: A big relief for Salazar

[Dr. FLK]

Nope. He is not now nor will he ever be good enough to be the DH. Why can't you understand the man is a backup. Should be case clsoed. He does not hit enough to be the DH. He is what all teams have and need is a backup. To beleive he can be the DH is thinking wrong to me. He is a nice little story. But palyers like that are a dime a dozen. I am not down on the man or down of Pie. But IMO they are just backups that can be replaced. I am not trying to be ugly or mean spirited about Oscar at all. My opinion about him is just different, thats all i am trying to say. Golly gee.

I believe he can form a pretty nasty DH-platoon with Luke. He's not an every day player, but he certainly has value.

I guess you just chose to ignore the part where I said he has value, but not as an everyday player. I said he could be part of a DH-platoon, meaning he play to spell Luke against tough lefties. "Golly gee"!

[El Gordo]

You really think so Gordo? You beleive he would hit good enough to be the DH?

Yes, I see a good hitter, a guy who consistantly has quality AB's. They aren't a dime a dozen. We have very few of them on our team at present.

[El Gordo]

Come on now Gordo. Oscar is a good guy but he will never be able to hit like Ortiz. Is that waht you are saying? Maybe it is too early and I am not reading you right.

My point is that when Minnesota relased him they obviously didn't feel he would hit like Ortiz either. He wasn't Ortiz yet, he was just this heavy guy who couldn't even play 1B.

[El Gordo]

Nope. He is not now nor will he ever be good enough to be the DH. Why can't you understand the man is a backup. Should be case clsoed. He does not hit enough to be the DH. He is what all teams have and need is a backup. To beleive he can be the DH is thinking wrong to me. He is a nice little story. But palyers like that are a dime a dozen. I am not down on the man or down of Pie. But IMO they are just backups that can be replaced. I am not trying to be ugly or mean spirited about Oscar at all. My opinion about him is just different, thats all i am trying to say. Golly gee.

How can you say that if you haven't even looked at his numbers? Any way DT disagrees with you. He said in a recent interview that Oscar can flat out hit, that his best position would be DH, but that he would be fine at 1B. He doesn't see him at 3B.

[Dipper9]

The president of ITW thinks so. I would imagine his talent evaluation is better than yours.

letters....

[DrungoHazewood]

Done ... before I saw your post. I'm trying to get this back on the substance of the argument, and hopefully my follow-up post will have achieved that. It's precisely because I respect the gray matter in Drungo's head so much that I find it so frustrating that he would use arguments that I consider so obviously fallacious, and that I have a feeling, when push comes to shove, he would concede that he doesn't really believe.

So, you apologize, then go on to say I'm still using arguments that I don't really believe? Nice.

Disagreement with you doesn't equate to lying.

[DrungoHazewood]

What kind of power do you need to be a full-time DH? Edgar Martinez had one year out of eighteen where he hit for more than thirty home runs and I'd take him on my team. Harold Baines' career-high for a season is twenty-nine homers.

I think someone could be a wonderful full-time DH with zero home runs. But they'd have to do a lot of other things well, some of them unlikely to happen with a player who's physically limited enough to be poor everywhere on defense. Such as baserunning and stealing bases.

My argument against Salazar as a full-time DH is that in order to be an asset on a contending team he'd have to post an .850+ OPS. To be an acceptable player you wouldn't need to immediately replace he'd have to have an .800 or so. I think it's pretty unlikely, given Salazar's overall performances, that he'll do that as a full-time major leaguer. Even weighting the last two years especially highly.

I'd have no problem trading Mora or Huff and giving one of their jobs to Salazar for the remainder of the year. But I would have little confidence that going into 2010 expecting to contend, that Salazar would push the O's in that direction as a DH or a 1b/3b. The bar is just too high for a player who has only hit after many multiple exposures the high minors.

[Frobby]

What kind of power do you need to be a full-time DH? Edgar Martinez had one year out of eighteen where he hit for more than thirty home runs and I'd take him on my team. Harold Baines' career-high for a season is twenty-nine homers.

Yeah, I'd take either one of them. My gut feeling is that if Salazar played DH full time he'd be a 15-18 HR guy with a .280 average and a .340 OBP. Think Melvin Mora over the last 3-4 years. Now, that is just my opinion.

[Lucky Jim]

I think someone could be a wonderful full-time DH with zero home runs. But they'd have to do a lot of other things well, some of them unlikely to happen with a player who's physically limited enough to be poor everywhere on defense. Such as baserunning and stealing bases.

My argument against Salazar as a full-time DH is that in order to be an asset on a contending team he'd have to post an .850+ OPS. To be an acceptable player you wouldn't need to immediately replace he'd have to have an .800 or so. I think it's pretty unlikely, given Salazar's overall performances, that he'll do that as a full-time major leaguer. Even weighting the last two years especially highly.

I'd have no problem trading Mora or Huff and giving one of their jobs to Salazar for the remainder of the year. But I would have little confidence that going into 2010 expecting to contend, that Salazar would push the O's in that direction as a DH or a 1b/3b. The bar is just too high for a player who has only hit after many multiple exposures the high minors.

Think Johnny Damon, w/ gimpy arm and his 1999-esque SB numbers.

[Sports Guy]

The overrating of Salazar is amazing to me.

[Mackus]

Salazar's body of work doesn't suggest that he'll be a good enough player to become a regular at the MLB level.

However, the longer he keeps hitting at the MLB level, the less and less relevant that previous body of work becomes.

He's not gonna be given a long opportunity right now, but if he continues to rake in the limited opportunities he gets, eventually he'll get a longer opportunity. Him developing into a solid everyday DH wouldn't be the craziest thing that's ever happened, its far less improbable than Melvin Mora's rise to AS caliber, IMO. But it also is far from being a likely outcome. For now leave him as a bench player spelling our DH and corner infielders from time to time and pinch hitting late in games.

[DrungoHazewood]

Think Johnny Damon, w/ gimpy arm and his 1999-esque SB numbers.

Right. It can happen. Hal McRae was one of the best DHs of all time. He'd hit .330 with 50 doubles, but sometimes only eight or 10 homers. Apparently he had an arm like a wet noodle, I think after an injury.

But I think you'll agree that most DHs are DHs because they have the range of a garden slug.

[TonySoprano]

The overrating of Pie is amazing to me.

Fixed that for you:D

[Sports Guy]

Fixed that for you:D

Too bad no one is overrating Pie at all.

[Tx Oriole]

I guess you just chose to ignore the part where I said he has value, but not as an everyday player. I said he could be part of a DH-platoon, meaning he play to spell Luke against tough lefties. "Golly gee"!

Sorry, i didn't see that part of your post.