Why not Caratini and have Cesar Salazar called up? He has far more experience at first than when Dusty experimented with Dubon there... Loperfido is already 25 -- service time shouldn't be an issue, and another lefty bat could be useful.
Caratini will give you an OPS in the 650-700 range.... that really isn't good enough IMO. They would rather wait and see what they get from Abreu. As for Loperfido - it isn't just about service time, it is about him proving at the AAA level and to the teams player development staff that he is ready to have success at the big league level. Right now it is hard to make meaningful trades. The one real "hope" is Belt, who had an OPS over .800 last year, but mostly was a DH last season and struggles against lefties. I don't know for sure if Belt wants too much money or if the Astros are afraid signing Belt would cause issues with Abreu, who they think could still bounce back.
Loperfido has over 170 pa in AAA and has struck out in more than 1/3 of them. Anyone thinking the odds are good he could come up right now and have success is foolish. He needs to continue to develop in AAA and if he gets 150+ pa where his k rate is below 25% without sacrificing power then we can talk about him deserving to get a shot. Right now he would project to something like a .220/.285/.385 slash line and that’s not viable at 1B.
This seemed like an appropriate place to insert our current first baseman's slash line .067 .067 .219 into this conversation. Adding to that is his SO% of .333 and you can see why Loperfido looks like a better option.
I think Belt replacing Singleton is the only move that makes sense this season for addressing this problem, at least before the trade deadline anyway. I wonder if there is concern about signing Belt bumping them into the next tier of LT penalties? If it's simply a matter of not hurting Abreu's feelings, then signing Belt might make sense as at the very least you could platoon the two to get the most out of them.
Meh. The point is not to replace Abreu’s past, it’s to make the most out of the future. For reference, Loperfido’s projection would be worse than not only what Abreu projects to be, but what washed up Yuli Gurriel would project to hit if Houston brought him off the scrap heap.
I don't know how much longer Houston can keep running Abreu out there. Honestly. Anyone at all would be an upgrade at this point.
2.5 of these things can be true.. +/- .5 (sampling error) 2.5 of these things can't have proven results... +/- .5 (sampling error) ...either way, its a no-win scenario.
I was Abreu's biggest defender last season, but this is getting nuts. Maybe he can't recover from this. He looked good in Spring training before his injury, so maybe he's injured again? I do not know. Bregman still thinks that hitting for half the season is enough to get a big contract. I think it's time to bring up Loperfido. At least we know he can swing the bat fast enough to get past the outfield sometimes.
HUGE difference between a 34 year old and a 37 year old. That’s typically the difference between the end of a guys prime and his retirement.
