Like I said, I know some hate Carter so I get it. And maybe if we could contend this year I would think differently. But even as a huge fan, it ain't happening this year. Why we would sit a 27 year old who hit 29 bombs last year and has good on base potential is beyond me though
Carter shouldn't have 'played' any position last season; he should have DH'ed exclusively. His offensive skills were drowned by his huge negative defensive skills. Carter had the second highest wRC+ rating behind Castro last year; why would you bench Carter to play Castro at DH (lowering Castro's positional value too)??? It would absolutely be a disservice to take Carter's bat out of the lineup to play Castro at DH.
I agree with this fully. Carter is awful in the field, put him at DH, let him hit bombs and hope he gets his on base in the .350 range
Its not "hate"... its that despite his HR numbers, he's really not a good player and his production shows that he doesn't win this team any more games than a replacement player would. There's a reason Oakland offered him up... Beane doesn't usually "lose" any trade (which is why I want Stassi to mash asap).
His overall offensive WAR only (1.3), while being the 2nd highest on the team, was close to Altuve (1.2) and Dominguez (1.2)... and was down from his previous season in Oakland where he was 1.7. Castro was 4.1. So, while he may have been the 2nd most productive hitter on this team... it was mainly because this was a bad team (and still is a bad team). But, I do expect him to produce at a similar level as last season (i.e. - he shouldn't get "worse")... and may seem to have a better year simply because there's no way he puts up a worse road/home split than he did last year (actually was horrible at home).
wRC+ stands for weighed runs created plus; it's at catch-all offensive statistic which is very popular. With the league average always being 100 it makes it very easy to compare players. The number is derived from wOBA which is described by Fangraphs as: I tried to bold a couple of the more important points. wRC+ is also park and league adjusted. The stat will give you a much better idea of a player's offensive contributions than something as simple as OBP or OPS.
Even if you are wary of wRC+ Castro was 33rd in MLB (>450 PA) for SLG (.485) and 48th for OBP (.350). I don't think there has to be any statistical voodoo going on to say he was arguably a top 40 hitter last season just from those two numbers alone.
1. Carlos Correa 2. George Springer 3. Mark Appel 4. Mike Foltynewicz 5. Lance McCullers 6. Jon Singleton 7. Vincent Velasquez 8. Michael Feliz 9. Delino DeShields 10. Domingo Santana 11. Rio Ruiz 12. Max Stassi 13. Andrew Thurman 14. Nick Tropeano 15. Chris Lee 16. Aaron West 17. Asher Wojciechowski 18. Andrew Aplin 19. Josh Hader 20. Teoscar Hernandez
Singleton is really high (no pun intended), and didn't have a good year last year at all...I'd drop him down unless he can demonstrate his prior capabilities.
I disagree. He still has all the tools that made him a top 30 prospect, and he is only one year removed from dominating AA as a 20 year old. 1B is a weak position in the minors as a whole right now, but Singleton is the top 1B prospect in the entire minors. I try not to read too much into his stats last year between playing only half a season, changing levels, the suspension, and showing up out of shape.
