ashbury

I forget exactly about Hocking's case, but both Punto and Carroll were deemed starters by the manager, and indeed both were given "starter's minutes". Carroll's multi-year was "two", I forget Hocking's or Punto's. Molitor by contrast is expressing doubt for public consumption about Nunez's qualification to be a starter. I will say, after I went on record in the early off-season that Sano would never see an inning of work in RF, I am hesitant to guarantee that a four-year contract (which I was responding to) for Nunez is impossible. But until such a contract occurs, it is indeed throwing shade to imply that it would be just typical of this organization.

I'm in favor of investment there. Perez, whom you mentioned, was not a draft pick, BTW. I hope they have success going that route. They apparently thought they had made some good bets with Garver and Turner, but neither one looks like will reach the level Perez is at. They should keep trying, by every avenue. Posey's a good example of the problem, though. He plays significant time at 1B, and still misses a consistent 12-15 games a year, it being a league with no DH. If your catcher's playing 40 games a year at 1B, then you have trouble keeping a Brandon Belt type in the lineup and you have to push him out to a corner outfield position several games a year, at some cost to the defense no doubt. It's not unsolvable but it does put pressure on the roster moves you can make. And in the Giants' case nothing has gone wrong in the plan, at least in the seasons since the broken leg incident. It's not that I want a bad hitting catcher. It's just that the investment choices needed to achieve a top hitting catcher are potentially as high as for any other position, and yet the payoff can be lower in terms of games actually played. If you are one of the teams with infinite resources, sure; for most teams, investment in one area comes at the expense of another. Said another way, if you make moderate investments in prospects like Perez, or Garver and Stuart, and then one of them happens to become the best hitter on your 25-man roster, then that's the proverbial "nice problem to have". Investing in a tippy-top draft pick, with an eye toward having the best hitter on your team if he pans out like the scouts say, should not be at catcher, in my view, because then you are purposely taking on a "problem". Finally, I freely admit that this means I probably would have picked Mark Prior instead of Joe Mauer (absent the local-boy angle, at least), and it would not have worked out as well. That's the nature of investing in pitching, too. I still think it would be the right call, if my scouts told me they were approximately on a par with one another.

That would be a different talent assessment, and a choice I could get behind. It wouldn't do anything about the perceived hole we have at the catcher position, of course.

You fix it some other way. And the attempt to fix it via trade of a center fielder, which thus far has worked out so badly, leaves me underconfident that the talent assessment at the position will be better at the top of the draft.

Joe Mauer is a great player, but the experience of having him makes me leery of "investing" so much hitting talent in that position. It makes the management of the 25-man roster harder. Getting 130 games behind the plate out of any one player is a challenge, and then you want your stud batter in the lineup for the other games, which likely means DH. That in turn means you can't carry too many "corner" types like we have now, vying for extra at bats at DH (or those corner positions); at DH it also means there's a temptation to carry a third catcher if the manager is paranoid about being caught having to have pitchers bat in case of a mid-game injury. There's also the worry of the stress of playing catcher wearing your elite bat down. These are not insuperable obstacles, and of course you don't want an offensive black hole playing the position. But given a close decision, I would opt for another player, at a high first round pick, than catcher.

Give me your tears, South Florida woman. http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02720/borat-sacha-1_2720460c.jpg

In fairness, you are not just another TD poster here to mock the players when they lose.

You do not take that pitch the opposite way.

I stayed in this place twenty years ago. Amazingly, as I look them up, they are still in business. http://r-ec.bstatic.com/images/hotel/840x460/414/41497892.jpg

DOZIER!

I'm very sorry to hear that.

Maybe Molitor should wander over to the opposing dugout, and ask, "if you guys happen to score in the top of the inning, would you mind if I ran Jepsen out there to pitch the bottom?"

In extra innings at home, I'll be a little surprised if anyone gets such opportunity.

Welp, the Kevin Jepsen Era appears to be over. Just another bullpen arm tonight.

"No, the other one."

Nice job on the bunt, by Kintzler.

Odds just went way down in the bottom of the eighth. Wait and see....

I mentioned that after watching runners take liberties with him in Oakland. I could not definitely say that his arm is lacking, but indeed the runners were reaching second by a hair, when normally they would have been content with a single to left. Clearly the book on him is to challenge him.

Careful. We've already got the "Chief is so old that" bit. You're courting "SwainZag is so young that". / and probably those who clicked Like, too

I once wrote a Unix script to construct corporate mission statements solely with phrases like these.

FWIW Molitor is on record as saying "slow down, slow down". http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2016/06/al-notes-angels-bosox-twins-rays.html “It’s a slippery slope as far as projecting a guy into [an everyday] role who has played well for a couple months..." I suppose it's fun to throw shade, that Ryan might sign a utility guy to multi years, but that's all it is.

A sufficient condition, but hardly necessary.

Them, and the po-po too. "Somebody's targeting vulnerable black women? Well, let's make sure and keep an eye on this. No sense in alarming the public."

Maybe you looked at Brian's writeup in the forums rather than the article. It's documented right there in the photo.