Jose Abreu

Robert

Abreu

Jimenez

When the sample is this small, you have to look game by game. For example, Grandal caught Giolito’s start against the Twins, as well as Lopez’s. I don’t think the quality of catcher would’ve changed their lack of fastball command and the powerful offense. Grandal also caught that Drew Anderson game that we weren’t actively trying to win. On the other hand, McCann has caught most of Keuchel’s starts and Giolito’s starts against bad offenses (CLE/DET). Obviously his “catcher ERA” will be lower

Which part? If it’s the second sentence, I don’t actually believe that. I think Giolito could have 32 starts with Grandal and 32 with McCann and the numbers would be about identical. He may prefer McCann but that’s just a comfort thing that he will establish with Grandal over time, too

Catcher ERA being important is the biggest lie in baseball. And if Giolito doesn't feel comfortable pitching to other catchers, then he's just not as good as we thought

No, literally 20. But they're also 6-15 against us in our last 21 meetings, so the premise still is not great

Absolutely not (but I agree that he's the only prospect we have that is fair value. Maybe Kopech, but still no)

At 14-11, and with most projection systems suggesting you only need 28 wins to make the playoffs in the AL, one could argue we're already halfway there in terms of victories. Fangraphs has our playoff odds at 88% now

I ask again, why is there such a vocal segment of posters who think Collins is so bad at catching that he can't even get a game here and there? Aside from his form on that wild pitch in the first inning, he looked fine back there, called a clean game, and even stole a few key strikes. Not sure why he can't be penciled in as our backup catcher next year

Activated half an hour ago

That's fair. If that's the case, would you say that it might have been foolish/short-sighted to keep him in for the 9th in a blowout instead of putting in Cuthbert?

If Moncada was able to stay in the game last night, I would have to believe he's able to play tonight

Makes sense, I just couldn't tell if you were trying to imply that Eloy will remain like this forever. I'm still quite optimistic that he has a 6-7 year run of .300/.350/.580 kind of years. Hope your week gets better

I wasn't around for the other thread with this debate but Avi Garcia has never had a slugging percentage even close to .550 (highest was .506). I get that you're going for a low-OBP high-SLG archetype, but Avi is a bad example of that, and Eloy will probably be a .350+ OBP guy in his prime IMO

Collins is not a plus defensive catcher but I don't get where everyone got the idea that you can't even put him back there. I've watched every inning of him behind the plate in MLB (plus a bunch of AAA games) and I don't see how he's unplayable. Not sure about his game calling but his framing and overall skills back there aren't much of a drop-off from McCann

The idea is that Eloy/Abreu are hitting the ball hard, but it doesn't yield as many results because lower launch angles mean more ground balls. Objectively, ground ball hitters have less success than line drive/fly ball hitters, for the most part. I'm not worried about it with Eloy, however, as even despite the low launch angle, all of his underlying stats are very encouraging. Even with his impressive numbers, he has been unlucky this year

Eloy Jimenez

Yoan Moncada

Tim Anderson

One of the rare times where I'm glad my college doesn't start until October (quarter system). Not that I'll be going to campus anyway, but many are

Interesting fact I read on a Tigers board: Cease has made 4 starts against Detroit in his career and is 4-0 against them. I knew he has faced them a lot, but didn't realize they represented 26% of his starts (after tonight)

While Robert will likely be much better, I think his progression at the plate will mirror Anderson's. Anderson's second at-bat against Boyd last night in the second inning was a fantastic display of his growth as a hitter since 2016. I think we'll be seeing Robert have similar ABs in coming years, once he starts laying off sliders and forcing pitchers to come into the zone like Anderson does now

Jimenez

Not to mention, league average OPS in the Southern League was .683. You obviously want a real prospect to be well above that, but given that he profiles as a defense-first guy with some on-base skills, he's at least worth a look