ashbury

Everyone's pretty much agreed on that. But that's only a neutral statement. Don't you want to take the additional step of saying he is a "give them an out" (or a base) guy on defense?

Age 25 and still a year away doesn't add up to a great shot at a starting role. Stranger things have happened, but...

I hate this DFA of Arcia. Santana wasn't off the 40-man, so only a 25-man roster move was needed to add him. There are 3 guys who would be easy IMO to option to Rochester, leaving room for Arcia for the time being: Buxton, Kepler, Park. I would pick Park. But the argument given against sending ANY of them down is that they won't learn to hit major league pitching at AAA. In that case, why didn't that argument get applied to Arcia the last two years, while he did still have options? A puzzling double standard. (And I hesitate to open another tangent, but we're working toward a similar scenario with Polanco in 2017.) Adding Park this past off-season was a good move - increasing the talent pool always has to be good. The problem is not making a corresponding move. TR stated that he was in talent acquisition mode, and wasn't looking to move any of the players he already had. Unless that was purely a negotiating tactic to keep the value of a trade chip like Plouffe high (didn't work!), the glut of corner/DH types stood out a mile at the time, and never was addressed. And now one of those corner/DH types is about to be lost for pennies on the dollar (if we're lucky, otherwise for zero), and it doesn't seem like it had to happen. I don't claim trading Plouffe was going to be easy, or return full value. But TR apparently was afraid of getting only 85 cents on the dollar by trading someone like him, and held on too long. These things all tie together.

But you're a defense guy. Bad defense negates some portion of whatever offense is produced. Whether you espouse one particular formulation of the tradeoff, you surely have a mental format for doing the tradeoff, and surely Arcia's defense bothers you, doesn't it? He's way down from his ceiling on offense these past two years, but even if he comes back to that ceiling, his glove is giving back some of those runs.

That sample size becomes much much larger when you include all the guys he faced, and not just the two outs recorded. Seemed like an entire season's worth of plate appearances.

Anybody got insight on how you get a high schooler to sign for less than slot? Seems to me the kid has the stronger negotiating position than the team, and he doesn't need Scott Boras to point it out to him.

Nah, it's a feature.

Ho hum, another WINNAH!

Reminder: Ramirez gave up only two hits in his long tenure as a Brewer. Both homers.

As long as he throws that change with the same motion, it's got to be unhittable.

If that's your entry in the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, it needs some polishing.

Danchat says he's trying his best.

This was supposed to be good. Hope things work out as well for Robbie.

Yes, because nothing can go wrong with a #1-overall draft pick. http://www2.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/Minnesota+Twins+Photo+Day+H5NfVhlbxP9l.jpg

This is a... good thing... in Canadish?

By five months. I am one of the stronger advocates here for age adjustment when evaluating prospects, but this is cutting it awfully fine. Especially if comparing a player from a baseball playing country to one that is not. What next, adjusting Ozzie and Jose Canseco's stats by birth order?

Knowledge of his flaws will make the flaws go away for trading purposes? Or, will familiarity breed contempt, among other GMs?

Most likely a Proctologist is called for, to cure this case of cranio-rectal inversion.

"Sometimes you just can't give your money away." -- Anonymous MLB GM

A moderator-to-be-named-later is about to give you a bannin', son.

Or, the huge manatee!

Ortiz is batting? I thought he retired tonight.

I make my own water. Two glasses of H, one glass of O.

"Um, Pinch, that's Emily Litella." "Oh. That's very different. Never mind."

There's a big difference between partly conceivable and all inconceivable.