When Fisher is healthy, I suspect Marisnick goes back down. Especially if they expect Reddick to be back reasonably soon too.
You are 100% right about Kemp. You mentioned his arm a few days ago. I watched some of his throws in the Indians series. Biggio like arm is exactly what I thought. We have to get the cut off man to sprint halfway out into the outfield for a relay from Kemp.
Jake looks like a pitcher trying to hit right now. He’s not a major league caliber baseball player at this point and I think he knows it. He looks completely overmatched at the plate. I feel bad for him, but his career may be fizzling out right before our eyes.
You're not wrong. But there's no way he's saving enough runs to offset all of the runs he's giving away at the plate. I would rather roll with Kemp in CF until Reddick is back. Certainly not ideal, but you can't keep running 8 man lineups out there.
Oh I know. Jake is lost at the plate right now and needs to be in Fresno. Fisher isn't terrible out there, but then he has the same plate issues Jake does with lesser defense. Myles Straw, 5th OFer?
My crush on Myles Straw has been growing all season. I absolutely love his game. I'm not sure how much he will be able to hit when MLB pitchers start attacking the strike zone on him, but he screams great 4th OFer to me, and that's his floor. Spectacular glove, spectacular speed to pinch run, and he will give you competitive professional AB's. And yes, I personally would like to see him on the MLB roster pretty soon.
How do you carry both Kemp (assuming he keeps doing what he's doing) and Straw on the same roster? Except for the L/R and OF defense they're pretty redundant players.
I think Straw is a superior version of Kemp as a backup OFer prospect goes. Straw is faster, better defensively and has an arm that can handle RF. Having said that, Kemp has been awesome and if he keeps up this production we will have to keep him in the lineup one way or the other. He is pretty much strictly a LFer, so his bat is his true weapon. I think Kemp should be in the lineup every day right now to see just how much he can sustain these results. I tend to think he won't, but if he does no way he goes anywhere particularly when Tucker comes up and Reddick gets back given that both guys can play RF. But that would also give us Springer and 3 lefties in the outfield, another possible strike against Kemp unless he really keeps raking. In September and the playoffs when teams don't carry 13 pitchers, Straw would be a perfect 5th OFer.
It's really strange to me that they have completely abandoned Gattis as a catcher. He isn't Brad Ausmus, but he wasn't dear god he can't be back there bad. He wasn't throwing out runners, but runners weren't running wild either.
He's probably been the third best AL rookie so far after Ohtani and Torres taking into account his defense.
This. We could instead call up Reed or White, and just use Gattis as the second catcher. He isn't really bad behind the plate, and he hits better when he catches. We really don't need a full-time DH, as it isn't a fielding position and we can just rotate it to give everyone some rest
Don’t really know where to put this so I figured I’d put it here... We’re currently in probably the toughest stretch of our schedule this season. Series against the Angels, home/away with the Indians, Yankees, Red Sox and Mariners is a pretty tough stretch. So far we’ve managed to play pretty well against some of these top tier teams. The huge plus is that after our series with Seattle we don’t play a single probable playoff team until after the All Star Game. We’ve got 36 straight games against the Rangers, A’s, Royals, Rays, Jays, White Sox and Tigers. With an easy stretch like that there’s no reason why we can’t be sitting right around 60 wins at the all star break just like last season.
