Looking at our players' BA and OPS thru the lineup, is not what I'm used to seeing over the recent seasons. Our veterans are not what they used to be (Bregman, Yuli, Brantleys power maybe, Altuve dare I say), while our younger guys are doing their part and then some (Tucker, Alvarez, Pena). I hope we make a couple trades to boost the offense. Our World Series window is open for only so long, so waiting more this season for Bregman and Yuli to "figure it out" is too risky. We can't expect Jake Myers to come in after being gone for a year, to rake and save the offense. Then there's Maldonados bat....
Probably because Chaz- who is literally the floor for a platoon partner with Brantley (and I’ve advocated getting a better rhb v lefties than him)- has a higher OBP/SLug and plays better defense. I might mention that Brantley has a sub 700 ops for his career, he has all of 4 XBH this year vs lefties (in 80 PA) and platooning him and moving him to the bench vs left handed starters also makes your bench deeper and gives you an incredible weapon pinch hitting late for Maldonado which helps solve that problem as well, as most of the closers in baseball are right handed. It also gives an older player more rest and that should keep him sharper. Other than that- yeah- platooning Brantley would be a bad idea.
I think more. He’s not throwing full bullpen sessions yet and hasn’t thrown his curve off a mound I don’t think. He has probably 2-3 weeks of ramp up left then another 2-4 weeks of rehab starts. Early August would be my guess. Sucks. But he could still be a major weapon on the playoff staff if he comes back healthy. Just don’t think he’ll be re-established in the rotation until next season.
Your timetable sounds reasonable I think he comes back as a starter though, even if he needs a couple extra weeks to get there. I think they want him healthy and ready to pitch in rehab games before the trade deadline. Aug 3rd. If he passes all the tests then they can trade a starter. Urquidy, Javier, or Odorizzi ( in order of likeliness not preference) for a bat to help in the post season and next year. Lance pitches at AA/ AAA all of August and rejoins the rotation for all of September. For August the rotation is: Verlander, Framber, Garcia and the 2 guys not traded. In September Lance moves to #3 and the team can go to a 6 man rotation to keep starters fresh and skip the #6 guy if necessary. In playoffs JV, Framber, Lance, and Garcia start. Remaining starters go in to pool of bullpen options.
Dude, your stats about Brantley and Chaz OPS aren’t true, at all. Brantley is not a sub 700 career OPS, and Chaz is not a better hitter than Brantley, overall or period. Who the **** cares if he can hit lefties but can do a damn thing against right handers. Geezus, you’re insufferable.
My stats are exactly correct. We are literally talking about a platoon and the only stats you consider in a platoon are hitting vs the other pitchers handedness. I literally responded to you saying “tell me again about how Brantley needs to be platooned” with exact platoon splits. You also ascribed lineup discussion literally written in the sabermetrics book as my idea in some way when it’s not. Serious question/ do you understand what’s meant by platoon? If batter X hits 1000 against left handed pitchers 200 against right handed pitchers and 400 overall (because more pitchers are right handed) and batter Y hits 1000 against RHP and 200 against LHP and 800 overall (avian because more pitchers are right handed) the proper response to someone saying “hey let’s platoon X and Y so they each start only against the pitcher they are strongest against and never against the pitcher they are weaker against the proper response isn’t “ you are an idiot- player Y hits 800 and that’s better than player x’s 400 you are just making stuff up.” Michael Brantley is a career 695 OPS against left handed pitching. That encompasses 1924 plate appearances- or roughly 3 seasons worth of play. This is not a small sample size. Michael Bradley, were he only to face left handed pitching, would have had a short baseball career and would never have made it past a couple years in the majors as he’s an average to below corner OF defensively and those guys do not have a career at a 695 OPS. Chas McCormick has an 837 career OPS vs Left handed pitching and an above average defender for left field. Those are the actual stats and they are correct, no matter if you want to hand waive it away. If you find that or me insufferable please feel free to hit ignore. I won’t be responding to you as it’s not my goal to irritate people when I know it’s irritating and I don’t appreciate discussions with people who accuse me of making **** up.
This site’s ignore function creates some weird stuff. All I could see was this evisceration of someone who clearly has no idea what a platoon is, yet restored to personal attacks. I then had to play “guess the moron” before hitting “show ignored content.” I got this one wrong, sadly … turns out there are a lot of options! But liberal use of mute/ignore really does help readability overall. At any rate, a platoon of Brantley and Chas, if Meyers comes back healthy and hitting .800+ OPS, would dramatically solidify our outfield. Add a platoon or even just rotation of a strong 1B/DH via trade and an average backup C, and the lineup will be among the very top in baseball yet again.
The only statistical argument against platooning that you could make (specifically as it relates to Chas and Brantley) is Chas doesn’t have a large enough sample size to be valid. Brantley certainly does. My preference would be to get a true lefty killer like Nelson Cruz, but he might be washed up, so easiest course of events is just platoon Chas. It you could get Cruz and let Alvarez play LF when a lefty starts and DH Cruz on those days if you wanted to go that route. Agree completely that Meyers coming back to what he was (a solid above average CF), platoon on Brantley and Chaz and an attainable above average 1B bat makes us right back to as good as we ever were offensively more or less. for as frustrating as it is to be 22nd in runs we aren’t far away and have most of the pieces in house, and acquisition cost of what we need should be relatively minor.
Reading that Meyers doesn’t look good on rehab and instead of being activated next week when his rehab ends, he likely will be optioned to AAA
He hasn't been hitting well at all. He does not exhibited the power he had last season. I don't think he plays in the bigs this season. We already have one of the best defensive outfielders there now. He is not getting replaced until there is a significant bat upgrade
I would take Brantley versus a LHB any day over Chas, and I like Chas a lot. People put too much thought into hitter platooning when it's not that big of a deal. Since hitter platoon skill variance is so small, you can just add 10% to a hitter's expected performance when he has the platoon and when he doesn't (ignoring the characteristics of the pitcher, which are much more important) you can substract 10%.
695 over almost 2,000 AB’s in his career, most of which took place in a much better offensive environment. He just doesn’t drive to ball against left handers. It’s literally a huge deal when you have 2000 plate appearances of track record showing you to be sub average at it. I’m not saying Brantley can never face a LHP again in his career. I’m saying he should get lots of bench time against lefties and that will have the further knock down positive effect of keeping an older guy fresh, having a better defensive OF, and having a late game weapon for PH on your bench. 10% is a big deal in baseball. All you can do is what you can do. It’s a game of failure. You are going to bust way more often than you draw into 19 or 21, but that doesn’t mean you don’t play the book.
In his career, Brantley has faced LHP in 1924 PA with a wOBA platoon split of .056. That's a 16% difference in observed performance from his career wOBA of .344. You can estimate Brantley's true platoon skill by regressing that difference of league average (9%) to arrive at a 13% difference due to skill. So I was off by 3% in this extreme example. If you go by their current xwOBA/wOBA, there isn't much of a difference between them in offensive expectations when Chas has the platoon advantage, which he won't even have all the time when he's platooned.
