GusGus11

Well, not as promising a start to this inning for Maeda. Need damage control

Great inning for Maeda Lets get early runs

Correct, but Fundburk unlike Balazvoic has great AAA numbers as well worthy of a recall. Bala didnt. Also hes a lefty which we badly need rather than trying Moran and Headrick for the 5th time each. He absolutely might not do well or take some time to develop. Im just glad to give a chance to a guy who has deserved it for a month in a spot where we really need him(mid relief and lefty)

What are you even talking about? You arguing for the sake of aruging? Uhh no there no guarantee that FUnderburk wont stink. That isnt the point, there is no guarantee that Mike Trout wont stink as well. Sound logic. The point is currently Balazovic has stunk. Up here in MLB and in AAA. Hes been bad at both levels. He was so bad up here that we had just sent him down 2 games prior to his recall. So yeah, it was puzzling we didnt go to Funderburk last week when Oretga got hurt and delayed his 60 day IL when it was a move that always could have been made You saying Funderburk could stink is shockingly irrelevant to the point.

Also, really good chance see Funderburk right away tonight. Guardians have a lot of lefties/switch at the top and Thielbar may be fully unavailable with his usage lately

Mind blowing that this wasnt done right away when he was hurt. Could have had Funderburk up here a week ago. But whatever, glad to have him now.

https://twitter.com/GassyGrapher/status/1696282827258540470

Funderburk getting the call. Finally

TBH, while I get your line of thinking having Correa 2nd is alsot not ideal because when Julien draws the ineveitable lead off walk. We are staring down 2 outs and no one on for Royce Truthfully I would drop Correa even lower than 5. More like 6 or 7th. Heck he hit there for the Astros during some of their good seasons. But 5th is at least better than 3rd or 4th. Because while he can still hit into a DP from there. At least it allows Royce and Kepler to drive in some runs before he does and take advantage of the Julien/Polanco walks. Also, Royce and Kepler have some of the best homer pop on the team. So batting Correa after them adds to the chance they smoke a homer or double and leave the DP off the table.

Stunned that Jeffers is catching again but I love it. Twins realize that winning this series is basically the nail in the coffin and we need Jeffers to catch 2 of the 3. I like Royce being moved up but I actually kinda like Polanco in the 2 hole. Draws a lot of walks. But considering we absolutely refuse to drop Correa in the order for no reason at all, Swapping Royce and Polanco was like the only real option. Personally Id go Julien, Polanco, Royce, Kep, Correa But apparently we are worried about Carlos ego or something.

Julien always on the bench. Like I referenced Sears and Yarborough specifically who in Spears case is worse vs lefties and yarborough a push. Wallner as you mentioned has had a few. Ak got some too. But none consistently. And thats all I ask for. Lets see what they got. Im not saying they are forsure better than castro or Farmer but give them some games to prove it, and it doesnt have to be every game of course. But some consistent reps. Id argue most important tho is in the games they do start as you and Brian both seem to agree. Dont pull them early when likely their spot comes up more than just once. Let them face the lefty there unless there is some stat that says righties are waaaaaaaaaay better or Farmer specifically kills said pitcher. Actually one time Rocco did leave Wallner in vs a lefty. Holton for Detroit it was still really early like the 4th inning but Rocco let him hit with bases loaded. Found it kinda funny he chose that one cause Holton is elite and Wallner K'd easily. But I like that he gave him that shot. Would be nice if he didnt just seem to throw darts when those chances come though.

Then by all means lets get a cushion and sub him in to play 1B for the final 3 innings tonight too

Well, maybe things are changing already with a huge series that could win the division Jeffers is catching his second game in a row. We literally havent done that all year but with Cleveland in town its pretty imperative he catches 2 of the 3. Thats not a platoon pitching situation but hey, its a start to doing something slightly different.

I just simply presented to you what his slash line is vs lefties Its .240/.327/.320. Thats all I said ha. And its factually correct. And thats in 100 ABs so all I am saying is we have seen Castro repeatedly start vs left handers and produce a OPS of .647. Which is well below league average and hes a not part of our future core to develop. Now again, If Julien gets 100 AB/s and consistently plays every game vs a lefty and he produces worse than Castro. Sure, maybe develop him in the off season or something. So my post didnt have anything to do with arguing your data or anything like that. I get it that the kids havent hit either. But they have had smaller reps. And in the case of AK and Wallner. AAA larger samples vs lefties show they can hit them very well. Julien more average against them.

Exactly and thats why Id give them opportunity with consistent reps and see what happens. I know Julien helped win us the Pirates game when Keuchel was nearly perfect. Julien delivered early on vs the lefty LIke I said in a post above. If we started Julien or AK like 5 straight games vs lefties and it was proof that they were lost, ok then maybe platoon. But its not like we have David Freese off the bench as a righty like the Dodgers did in October a few years ago. We are talking Vazquez and Farmer. So I just want them to 1. get legit reps and 2. Get the occaisional chance to face a lefty 1 time in a game rather than subbed out prematurely. Heck I said in a different thread its also frustrating because it appears we hold them to a different standard. Last week we faced Burnes who like JP sears in Oakland has a bit reverse of splits. So we started Luplow vs Burnes. What that doesnt account for tho is that 1. Burnes is still really good and 2. Luplow is so bad against right handers he wouldnt be in the league if thats who he faced. So julien cant bat against JP Sears left on left but Jordan freaking Luplow can go right on right with Corbin Burnes?!?! Just doesnt add up

Willi Castro in 100 ABs as a right hander and consistent starts vs lefties he his slashing .240/.327/.320. Thats brutal. And a lot of those have had him batting 5th. We played Oakland out of the all star break and we started Willi all weekend vs their lefties and he was in a like a 5/40 stretch or something. Its robotic. Im aware none of the young guys have done anything vs lefties either. But they dont get conssitent reps. Wallner has gotten a few starts. But AK and Julien constantly sit. If they have 5 straight starts against lefties and still slug lower than Castros abysmal .320 maybe I say we try again next year. But right now we are not even giving them reps. Oakland threw JP Sears vs us., Stats said lefties hit 287 at the time off him and righties .229. We started Castro and our right handed platoons anyways. Our righties were 2/19 against him with Vazquez shockingly having both hits. Our default lefties(again, didnt have enough righties to start) were Kepler and AK. 2/5 with a homer. AK homered. AK and Julien if you remember then had the 3 run rally and won that game for us, Julien pinch hit when they right hander came in. Point is so often there are stats that show a struggling lefty vs lefties and we dont give our youth a chance. Similar thing happend vs KC. Yarborough at the time had blah splits vs Lefties. Wallner started and hit a homer.....our righties were shut down. But again, Julien didnt even get a crack. So basically my argument isnt that any of these kids would forsure be better. Its that after 100 ABs we know Castro is bad. And while Castro is technically their age, hes a role playing platoon guy who barely even made our roster(and his value is base running and late game Defense) we should not be halting growth to give that guy and his .647 OPS vs lefties every start vs them. Some games? Again, sure. Everyone has to play sometimes. Every time? Nonsense

Yeah if he doesnt trust Gallo in the case that Bochy doesnt make the move. I just let Farmer hit. Farmer doesnt have vast splits right now anways so let him face the righty who is in trouble AND it keeps our defensive alignment more ideal with Farmer still in the game and Vazquez not at 1B. It was just odd because the way he played it 100% was going to result statistically our worst hitter batting and having to play D at a spot he doesnt play often(though he doesnt look terrible there not sure what brief metrics say) and it was gonna burn to guys with more potential with the bats for later in the game.

I agree with you completely that platoons have to happen at times. Of course especially this day in age not everyone is going to play 162 games(except the Braves players pretty much). So of course get guys reps. Farmer and Solano originally were brought here to be hitters against lefties. As you mentioned my issue with it is the extreme usage of it and not developing guys. Basically when we face lefties we start a left hander only as a last resort as in we dont have enough righties to field a lineup. And through the mid summer(before Kepler got red hot) the one lefty that always had priority was Kepler the vet who actually for a decade of proof has been terrible against them. Max is seeing everything well now so no longer a gripe but it was faulty logic in early July. A few weeks ago when Castro was healthy. We were routinely batting him and Farmer 4th and 5th. Simply cause it was a lefty. Even though Farmer this year hasnt hit lefties at a clean up level(especially at those times) and Castro is virtually unplayable vs them And to your point on Jeffers, we kept trotting Buxton out there middle of order vs them(even when we moved him down to 6th, he moved back up vs lefties). Byron has been awful vs them. So yeah, long winded but I agree with you that platoons must be used at points, all teams use them. But as you said you dont try to turn your young players into Joc Pederson. Its the guys who are 30 and proven they are who they are that you always platoon. You have to let 25 year olds try and hit lefties. Thats where I think the negligence comes in. When we wrap this division up soon. I would love to see us trot out our "righty pitcher" lineup for like 3 games against a lefty and just see what happens. Because what we currently do against lefty pitchers makes our offense way weaker. Would be interesting to see if Julien, AK and Wallner all play vs a lefty if they all get comfortable. Allow us to to have more options come October and not be so predictable.

This is why our handlding of the youth to this point is negligent. And its malpractice if we dont start giving them sepetember reps vs lefties to get ready. Our right platoons are not good players. We need to play the talent and let them get consistent reps vs lefties and see what happens. Castro is brutal as a righty, hes not a better option than any of the lefties. Wallner and AK especially have shown to hit lefties really well during AAA stretches. GIVE THEM REPS. Right now we are so robotic and biased its going to go as you said where the opposition just deploys a lefty as early as possible and forces us into a ill advised move. Bochy played into that later in the game yesterday. Forced us to burn Farmer AND Julien. While getting stuck with one of the worst hitters in the league batting twice in key spots and playing a position he doesnt normally play. That guy was then replaced by Gallo. God willing we survived it. But that stuff is going to keep happening if we dont develop our minds and stop being robotic "lefty pitch, must bat righty" wiht no other considerations outside of that surface level thought.

We still roster Jordan Luplow. Hes the one getting the boot first

Of course it should be Funderburk But likely if we call up an arm itll be Moran or Headrick for the 10th time. We love calling up what we already know doesnt work. We need to get Funderburk on the 40 man though and for whatever reason we are afraid to do that as if we have some sort of gold mine of talent all across the 40 man already

We need to avoid the Astros thats 100%. Valdez is great and will have us starting our B team. Then it goes to JV. Quick death likely. I will say though I do not fear anything beyond those two. Rangers still tough because of Montgomery and Scherzer is a vet. But there is a chance they are dumb and go Scherzer/Evoldi first and give us a shot to duel them with Lopez and Gray while getting hot vs a right hander which we can do at any moment. Seattle looking unlikely but I still prefer them of the 3. Yes the starters are legit but they are all right handed. We did well against all them at least once(kirby dominated 1 and got hit 1) and their bullpen is mehhh. Also while greatly heating up, their lineup is easily the least deep of the 3 and they strike out a ton like us. Blue Jays are the dream, but lets be honest they aint making it so Ill stop at that.

No way?? Did you watch the first 3 innings?? Yes, Dunning was wild. But EVERY miss was yanked badly outside to righties. Then when Jeffers comes up he conviently puts it right into his ribs/forarm area?? Im down with you arguing major conicidence but to say ther is no way it was intentional is nuts. I get why the Twins thought it immediately. He threw in a location he wasnt hitting for 3 innings to the exact batter they would bean if intentional TBH my reason for hesitation is I think it would have been better to hit Jeffers the AB before after Wallners triple with the momentum and first base open. But maybe the Rangers thought that was too obvious and may get a immediate ejection. Either way, the only thing clear is there is no way to say for certain it was or wasnt. It was suspect and in a weird place in the game.

We have got to stop batting Correa 3/4. Dont worry about his ego. Hes simply not a good option. Hes a rally killer at any moment with the DPs. He isnt great with RISP anyways and he has one of the lower OPS of our regulars. Its very clearly not working.

I think we have established you are unclear how game strategy works