Week in Review: Winning Ugly in Oakland

[RpR]

56 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

If I was him, I'd want a 3B that was hitting like a mad man since moving to AAA, not ANOTHER LH corner OF........so I get his frustration. This team doesn't need to add Wallner to Gallo and Kepler......

Also, still not sure how Polanco makes the team any better if he replaces Julien. Certainly not offensively. 

Julien's glove work is atrocious, as bad or worse than Polanco was at SS, and Polanco was listed among the worst SS ever by the baseball "experts" in a list of worst ever.

[MABB1959]

4 hours ago, John Belinski said:

Maybe someone should ask him why is Buxton the DH or why is Buxton batting in 3 spot? Ask Rocco a hard question to get a answer as to why Buxton is even playing since he is hurting team. NO other manager in baseball would have a .200 hitter batting in 3 spot, but that tells people why Rocco is a poor manager.

I think questioning anything about Buxton is off limits to the press in post-game interviews by Rocco.

[Minny505]

30 minutes ago, RpR said:

Julien's glove work is atrocious, as bad or worse than Polanco was at SS, and Polanco was listed among the worst SS ever by the baseball "experts" in a list of worst ever.

Agreed. He seems destined to be a LF. He has good sprint speed. His arm strength is poor, but not horrible. Accuracy is more his issue. And picking grounders cleanly.

[stringer bell]

2 hours ago, Bigfork Twins Guy said:

Your answer... the lineups always seem to be dependent on the handedness of the opposing starting pitcher.  It has nothing to do with the quality of OUR hitter.  It's all odds-based.

I do not agree with that logic and feel that the BEST hitters should be in there, but this is not this teams philosophy IMO.

How will our young hitters ever learn to hit pitchers from the same side if you never ask them to do that?

None of the left handed hitters has hit lefties well and should be a "must start" against a lefty. There's a real problem getting Julien in vs. lefties with his defense and Solano and Farmer available to play second (both better options vs. a lefty). Pedigree and past performance kept Correa in the lineup (he's seemingly found his stroke) and now Buxton. 

[ashbury]

1 hour ago, stringer bell said:

 

Gah, I double posted somehow.  Mods, feel free to delete.

[ashbury]

1 hour ago, stringer bell said:

None of the left handed hitters has hit lefties well and should be a "must start" against a lefty. There's a real problem getting Julien in vs. lefties with his defense and Solano and Farmer available to play second (both better options vs. a lefty). Pedigree and past performance kept Correa in the lineup (he's seemingly found his stroke) and now Buxton. 

League-wide in 2023 the usual platoon splits are in evidence:

Our Twins exhibit the same trend, except our lefties are even more extreme and just aren't hitting, period:

"Now tell me one I haven't heard," you say?

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/split.cgi?t=b&lg=MLB&year=2023

https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/split.cgi?t=b&team=MIN&year=2023

(Ignore the yellow markings - I screwed up taking the screenshot and am too lazy to redo it.)

[Doctor Evil]

11 hours ago, USAFChief said:

Rocco, on Saturday's post game interview, when asked about Wallner: "we already have LH hitting outfielders"

It's called being married to the players and not the results. A great recipe for being average.

[Riverbrian]

Committing to Kepler and Gallo with Wallner on the roster is a quadruple down. Falvey and Lavine saying help won't be coming from the outside was the triple down. All the playing time is the double down. 

Never thought I'd see a quadruple down in my lifetime. 

We already have left handed hitting outfielders is... uff da... rather chilling.