I don’t disagree with your core point, but I don’t think AAA experience is all that important for pitchers. If he dominates AA for three months, then there is a real argument that he’s ready for the majors IMO.
Yes, let’s ignore all of Sheets’ history of being a bad major league hitter and slot in his horrible glove into RF because of a few dozen meaningless spring training at-bats.
He has already proven himself in the minors and more seasoning won’t really help. At this point, it’s make or break in the majors…it’s really that simply.
Can we please stop doing this every year? Spring training stats mean almost nothing and I say this as one of the most vocal critics of the Fletcher / Mena trade. And for the record, if Fletcher doesn’t make the Opening Day roster, that would much more indicative of Getz has no clue about player evaluation.
I think we will look back on this trade in 10 years and all agree it was an A+ return when Zavala ends up being a legit star posting .400 OBPs year after year with 25+ bombs per and Thorpe has made 200 (mostly quality) starts for us.
He’s 3.028 service time and typically you need to hold a guy down 15 days to ensure they don’t a full year (172 days) since the season is around 187 days long. As such, we’d roughly have to hold him down for a month and a half, which is an absolute no-brainer.