Jason Castro was an all star and had a .835 OPS for us in his 2nd full season. Remember being super excited for him then he just went down hill with the bat after that.
What ever went right for them last year certainly hasn't this year. Being 8.5 back they are almost eliminated practically speaking.
Kikuchi has been great but imagine if we could have gotten Snell somehow. Really don’t understand why the Giants didn’t trade him.
2023 Arluckton had several players who played over their head, plus they had an active non-Ranger participant that helped them. Biggio was a low-700 OPS catcher. Diaz has been low-800. Craig was an SB threat unlike Yainer, so at least there's that. Towles, Eusebio (silly to question his hitting streak), and Maldonado are all non-factors in this conversation. Diaz already has an easy argument for greatest catcher in franchise history.
Expanded playoffs has everyone thinking they can make a deep run. The Giants are only 2.5 out of the last wildcard spot despite being just one game above .500 in mid August.
Doesn’t help the Rangers and DBacks make it to the WS last year. Teams are all probably thinking why not us after seeing that.
Yanier is a born hitter. I never thought Castro was that good of a hitter and loved off of that season for yrs. Teams always thought he could get back to that level. He was a good defensive catcher although he had issues with passed balls
Dusty gave it away. It’s not that hard to see. Get out of the Dusty/Maldy truther groups. He gave the series away.
He’s hitting too good to sit, Kikuchi needs Caratini, for some reason they don’t want Yordan playing the field.
I remember Diaz having issues at first catching pick off attempts. I expect the the rays to try and run
