I can say im not sold on Jake , but he is having a very strong start to the year. Someone mentioned thats a trend for him , so lets hope he keeps it up. Smith is getting better in RF , which is nice, he still doesnt look fully comfortable , but im comfortable with his upside and growth potential there to be happy with his D so far and optimistic going forward. That foul ball yesterday pisses me off. How does that not get fixed !? Blanco looked much better in the condensed game i saw. A lot of the contact was soft. Also , on Walker's unluckiness ... that dude has had tons of paint ( or umps calling balls strikes ) vs him. I feel like im watching Bregman at the beginning of the year and hes trying to feel out the strike zone/ being too patient and right now pitchers are getting the advantage. Either way, i would like to see some power from Walker . Hopefully yordan is heating up . I think we need to use caratini more. Yainer is still a young catcher in the league and is adjusting to those responsibilites as well as keeping everything up to date on his swing and his own offense.
I'm also a little worried with Yordan and Altuve taking a huge chunk of the DH starts. Last year, Yainer was great and relatively rested. He's played a ton already and I don't love it - the way this lineup is constructed, he'll rarely DH too.
Walker and Diaz are where middle of the order rallies go to die. Diaz's OPS+ is 16 16 That's hard to do.
Diaz is in the throes of a sizable slump right now. He has proven himself a hitter. He will be fine. At some point he will mash. Hopefully this season lol.
3-4-5-6 (that's Yordan/Walker/Diaz/Pena) are collectively hitting a robust sub-.200 with an OPS around .600 Not gonna win many games doing that. They have to get hot at some point, right?
I worry more about Walker because of his age. He looks bad. He doesn't look as bad as Abreu though. I mean he’s still got the bat speed. He’s striking out way too much but he’s not 8 years behind on the fastball like Abreu was. I am hoping it’s just him pressing. Eventually, he should hit. He’s 34 right? He should still be able to hit. I think he will.
I am not worried at all about Yordan. Proven elite hitter. He will get his. He hates not playing LF more. That might be the reason for the slow start.
I just don’t count on Pena for offense. His true offensive weapon is his ability to beat out infield grounders and the occasional home run. He’s also very fast and will score from 2nd on a single. He will go 1st to 3rd on singles. He can tag on shallow fly balls. He’s not a high IQ hitter. He may become one, he’s still young. He’s a great bottom 3rd of the order hitter because he does bring tangible weapons to the table.
Walker is miscast as a 4-hole hitter. 6-7? Great. Paredes is another great 6-7 hitter. So is Pena. Most of our lineup are miscast, though. Need a DUDE behind Yordan and in front of Diaz, or 2 dudes hitting 4/5 in front of Diaz
Seems like this offense is ****ed without Smith being a certified badass, plus adding an elite hitter at the deadline. TBD Altuve Alvarez Smith Paredes Diaz Walker Pena Meyers
After seeing the small sample size, it's clear we need one big bat hitting behind Yordan, that may be Cam in a year or two, but it won't be this year. I hope Walker can find his groove, he`s had some unlucky strikes called on him and he`s hit the ball hard for outs but come on man, we need some spark.
