Imagine Straw and Altuve on base with Brantley, Bregman, Alvarez coming up. What a nightmare that would be in the head of opposing pitchers.
Can definitely still happen with Straw hitting in the 9 hole and Altuve leading off. I think we need to see straw earn the lead off spot the first month or so of the season and if he gets on base... great.
Tucker is getting reps in centerfield, but sounding a lot like McCormick has made the team. Souza is getting reps at 1B along with the OF corners. Toro, Souza, and the 9th reliever candidates appear to be battling for the 26th spot.
It's really hard for me to see value in having Souza on the roster if he can't play CF, even if he does looks capable at 1B. I suppose he could be a more reliable bench bat than Toro with the added benefit of not wasting Toro's service time, but overall I don't see Souza being a fit if he isn't the backup CF.
Dusty made a comment that he would like Straw and McCormick in CF all year. So no guarantee, but it does sound like he's going to make the team.
Since Pillar is no longer available I am now jumping on the Puig train. Stick Tucker in CF and sign Puig. Puig is a solid RFer with a cannon and I will take that extra offense over Straw in CF. Then use Straw as a late inning defensive replacement in CF and slide Tucker to LF after Brantley gets his last AB. Altuve 2B Brantley LF Bregman 3B Alvarez DH Correa SS Tucker LF Yuli 1B Puig RF Maldonado C
He also said "I’m hoping that we could just run Straw and McCormick out there, but the chances of that aren’t good (for the whole season),” Baker said. I think this solution easily makes the most sense Staw is not an MLB hitter, certainly not a starter right now
I took "the chances of that aren’t good" to imply that at some point one of those two will get dinged up for a little while requiring a temporary CF as I believe the context was Tucker playing CF. The quote does seem to imply not to expect an acquisition soon on a CF better than Straw and McCormick. Alternatively, one could take it to mean Click won’t let him have both in an effort to force Dusty to play a bat in CF more than Dusty would like.
I'm down with this. If our pitching can be above mediocre, I don't see a lot of teams beating us in a 7 game series. That lineup is just lethal. Especially if Yuli can have somewhat of a bounce back year.
