Jose Abreu

Maybe they're playing well because he's playing matchups as if it's the World Series rather than letting them develop as they should be. Obviously wouldn't be the only factor but it's still worth pointing out in my opinion

Vieria can take Bruce Rondon's spot if you ask me. That guy has been so bad since April ended.

Avi Garcia

Robert aside, I absolutely hate the way Vizquel has constructed lineups and managed this year. The constant bunting, sitting Rutherford vs LHP, etc. has been really irritating

I'm sure the Robert thing is just extreme caution and not some major DL stint

I would like to see stricter moderation in general. This board has a troll problem right now and lots of the threads are getting hard to read.

yikes

Moncada struck out about just as much as Jesus did in the minors. I wonder what people will say when his MLB K% is also not pretty.

I hope you realize that minor league errors both have no correlation to MLB fielding prowess and are probably scored in a completely unreliable manner

If the players he mentioned were on our team, all he'd do is complain about how bad they are defensively. If people think Moncada is bad at second, I recommend you watch a Yankees game.

I understand where you're coming from. I just think there should be a lot of room for patience given that he's a switch hitter (as they usually develop slower) and Cuban (I'm sure he's still acclimating to American life and MLB). I'm confident that he'll be a great player in a couple years Yeah he's gotten a little worse but has still been good defensively overall. The easy plays need to be made, I agree, and I think he'll figure those out. He has all the defensive tools to do so

Why are we stuck in 1954, thinking that his fielding is bad because of a completely subjective stat that doesn't take into account any sort of play made that the average fielder wouldn't make. We've made progress with fans finally accepting that batting average has little meaning in modern baseball, so why do people choose to ignore the vast array of new defensive statistics and base opinions off of one outdated, extremely flawed stat? I care as much about a player's error count as I do how many sandwiches they eat. It is really so subjective and a limited indicator of defensive skill that I'd argue it's even less relevant than batting average. If you watch the games, it's obvious that he sometimes botches an easy play, but he'll iron those out and he makes up for it with his incredible range. He's a top 5 defensive 2B in baseball per Fangraphs. Even if you disagree with that, I think it's very clear that he's an above average fielder at this point in time.

abreu

Yovani Gallardo is still around? We torched him for 9 runs in 3+ innings last year and he's even worse now.

I was gonna say he could just go back to college but I guess @bmags thinks that isn't a possibility. I know it's rare but I figured it could at least be considered

Maybe Engel but that's it

My guess is it was a pre-draft agreement saying that we really want him and would draft him at 46 or whatever rather than where he was projected, and in return we'd pay him what he would've gotten had he been drafted where he was projected. Maybe there was mutual interest

I wish they would do it without all the bunting, though

No, if that were the case, they'd be pining for 1921 Babe Ruth.

Also, Moncada is still one of the highest rated defensive 2B. Fangraphs has him at #5

Nope, everyone needs to be superstars right away or else they're busts. The irony is that everyone's favorite young players (Torres, Andujar, Albies) all have major issues. Torres is the worst defensive 2B in baseball, Andujar is the worst defensive 3B in baseball, and Albies forgot how to play baseball.

I did. I had assumed he would go in the 25-30 range.

I think we should let him switch hit (and actually bat him leadoff against LHP to get him reps, and stop asking him to bunt against LHP to get him reps) for the rest of the season and for the first half next year. If he still looks this bad as a right handed hitter, I think that's when we should consider a switch. Perhaps even after the 2019 season.

TimAnderson

Why don't you get mad every time a player loses his cool and gets ejected? Why is it only a problem when Anderson does it?