As a part timer. If Diaz played majority like he should, he'll have most likely 35+ hr as a rookie...guarantee RoY
Yainer has substantially better stats than Adley Rutschman. Can you imagine if the Orioles had Rutschman in a platoon situation, like what Dusty has done to Yainer? Chas McCormick has a better OPS than Pete Alonso, Rafael Devers, Austin Riley, Julio Rodriguez, Jose Ramirez.... he's in the top 15 in all of MLB for OPS. Yet he's in Dusty's OF platoon. SHEER INCOMPETENCE
Dusty: "There's more to winning as a catcher than scoring runs and good defense. Diaz is still at West Point. Martin has battle scars." LolWTF
I wonder how Cleveland Guardians fans feel seeing Yainer break out. He has a good shot at being a top 3 catcher in all of baseball.
they got themselves a decent catcher with Bo Naylor. not the same potential as yainer but still decent.
And he entered today slugging .635 as a catcher. Hopefully JV is taking notice... and it gets personal
he has now hit a home run in each of his last three starts as a catcher. Beyond the obvious Dusty point, it shows good handling of pressure by Diaz because he knows every time out as a catcher he is under scrutiny … and he homers every time. Next year Yanier unleashed is going to be fun to watch. Getting literally the best hitting (and good fielding) catching in baseball as a rookie is not something we expected from this supposedly putrid farm system.
Yainer is looking to join Jeff Bagwell and Yordan Alvarez, as biggest trade heists in Astros history.
Although it might be too late at this point, in order to get Yainer in the lineup every day, he needs to get more reps at 1st base. We know Maldonado is going to catch most days, and we know we can win a championship with him as part of the formula, so I give it the benefit of the doubt. But you can't have Abreu and his .640 OPS along with Maldonado most days out there - which is then compounded by Dubon taking at bats away from Chas way too regularly. From what I've seen, Yainer is not a good 1st baseman, but you need to give him more opportunities, especially since it's not like Abreu is a world class defender (he certainly aint no Yuli...). We've wasted the whole season not doing it, hence why I said it might be too late - but man, with our shaky starting pitching, it seems like we will need to mash in order to make it far this year, so having Yainer in there is necessary. HIs bat needs to be in there almost every game, along with Yordan and Brantley, so 1st base instead of Abreu seems like the most reasonable solution. If Abreu would be living up to his contract, it would be a different story, but he is literally one of the worst players in MLB right now, he was not part of the championship team and he doesn't bring the intangibles Maldonado is praised for (or that Yuli always brought). His contract should not be dictating playing time when there are better alternatives.
You say "right now" on Abreu but I don't think that's true. I see a guy that looks like he's gotten over his back injury and is swinging a really good bat. Yes- he's been terrible all year. That doesn't mean that's who he is now. My bet? He has like a 120 ops+ from his time getting off the IL to the end of the year. You don't want Diaz playing at the expense of Abreu. You want it at the expense of Maldonado.
