Why do we need Morneau on the team? To balance the lineup between right handed and left handed hitters. With Mornaue 1. Springer RF 2. Altuve 2b 3. Correa SS 4. Morneau 1b 5. Gomez cf 6. Rasmus lf 7. Gattis DH 8. Valbuena 3b 9. Castro With no Morneau 1. Springer rf 2. Altuve 2b 3. Correa SS 4. Rasmus LF 5. Gomez CF 6. Singleton 1b 7. Gattis DH 8. Valbuena 3b 9. Castro C Can Rasmus be good enough to hit 4th consistently? Singleton hitting 6th? Why Singleton 6th and not 7th or 8th? To split the lefties in the bottom of the lineup.
Since you won't stop posting about Morneau, let me respond once: 2015 away from Colorado: .242/.308/.358 = .658 OPS 2014 away from Colorado (good year): .309/.364/.475 = .839 OPS 2013 (PIT): .259/.323/.411 = .734 OPS 2012 (MIN): .267/.333/.440 = .773 OPS 2011 (MIN): .227/.285/.333 = .618 OPS The guy is 34 and has had 2 good seasons in his last 5 (not going to give him the benefit of Coors inflation--we saw how Cuddyer did when he left, as a recent example of the many out there). He's not a "sure thing", though you seem to pretend he is every time you post about him. By no means can you shove him in the cleanup spot and assume he'll produce. Yes, he's probably better than Singleton... but Singleton is still young and needs to be evaluated at some point. Same with White and Reed. To shove Morneau in there and hope he replicates 2014 wouldn't make much sense.
^^ Not to mention that he's only played one remotely full season since 2008 (2013 when he played 152 games). Plus, that Coors inflation only meant a whopping 20 hrs over 184 games.
The answer is clearly Brett Wallace: G AB H 2B 3B HR RBI R BB K SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS 64 96 29 6 0 5 16 14 10 31 0 0 .302 .374 .521 .895
Where the bleep is my boy Ty White with his career .421 obp through entire Astros system? Who the hell does that?? Altuve, Correa, Springer? Who has a less than 1/1 career BB/K rate? Who does that? Home run derby? No prob. Dominican league. MVP. No Morneau. Yes Tyler White. Bring on the season already.
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/fg-on-fox-the-top-plate-discipline-improvements-of-2015/ Evan Gattis basically became a completely different hitter in the second half of the season. Jeff Sullivan already pointed this out in September, and this should act as further confirmation: after a rough first half in which he struck out 22.4% of the time, Gattis showed a remarkable transformation, cutting down on the rate of swings at out-of-zone pitches by 13.5%. That lowered his second half strikeout rate to 16.3% — better than league average – and raised his walk rate from 3.5% to a more palatable 6.8%. These are very good signs for him getting back on track for the Astros in 2016 after a tough campaign last season. For most stats, looking at half a season of data is usually not very helpful at determining if a player is hot or has made a change. K% and BB% are two stats that half a season is generally a large enough sample size. Basically, Gattis looks like a slightly below average DH if he keeps a low BABIP (~0.260). Not good, but not nothing and definitely not nearly the atrocity his ABs were the first half of 2015.
Wei-Yen Chen off the board at 5 years 80 million with a 6th year with a vesting option. Big drop to the rest of the SPs left. Starters (Gallardo, Latos, Morrow, and Kennedy) left don't look very appealing except at discount rates. Even then..maybe not.
$16M/year seems like a lot for a Feldman-type pitcher. Orioles also made him a qualifying offer which he rejected, so Marlins will have to forfeit a draft pick.
I like Kennedy, but not at the price he'll likely command. Feldman is our 5th starter then? Dallas K. McCullers McHugh Fiers Feldman
He may become Feldman-like, but he has past performance compares very favorably with Feldman. Wei-Yin Chen appears to be a FIP beater with his ERAs on average being about a half a run less than his FIP (last year looks to a little lucky to have his ERA with separation closer to 1). He generates a lot of pop ups consistently. I think the AAV at 16 million would have been fine at 3 years as I think he's probably a little bit better than Feldman. Maybe even 4. 5th year plus lost of draft pick are huge negatives at that AAV.
The Marlins will be giving up their 2nd-round pick (#46 overall), since top 10 picks (they have the 7th pick in the 1st round) are protected.
