This is gonna take me some time.... I thought we were doing joint drills with San Diego for a second...
If you squint you can see some paths to competence against RHP. Reading some articles it seems the Astros are abandoning Yordan as an OF, but him in LF and Singleton at DH with Gamel in RF would give the Astros 3 bats in some RH matchups. A bounceback from Chaz would be huge. From 21-23 he was basically a league average bat against RHP, he was far better against lefties but he wasn't bad against righties. Jacob Melton has faired well against RHP in the minors and has the arm for RF, him coming up and contributing as a platoon bat could help a ton. Having said all that lets not pretend it's not looming as a major issue for the team. The league is right hand dominant so struggling against them like we do on paper is a problem they will have to cobble together a solution for.
Don’t sleep on Guillorme. He has been almost exactly league average against RHP for his career. A platoon of him and Dubon could be a top 10 unit when factoring in defense. Bonus points for the fact that neither of those guys strikes out much. I think Singleton is only still around in case Walker gets hurt during the spring. I think if they actually planned on keeping him they’d be getting him reps in LF (or not be shutting down the idea of Alvarez in the OF).
Yordan Alvarez speaks better English than Jim Crane, Dana Brown and Espada .... I get that it is comfortable for him to speak Spanish but he is more than capable... guy speaks to his wife and kids in English.... at some point he needs to ditch the Ichiro treatment.
1-5 looks really good.... then things kind of peter out. Really would like one more bat, too bad it didn't work out with Bregman. Don't even need a Tucker level bat with Paredes out there now, just an 800 OPS bat that can do a little bit of everything.... bump Pena to the bottom of the line up and the offense goes from "okay" to potentially lethal.
Singleton in LF? He's never played LF in his entire career. I know Altuve hasn't either, but Altuve isn't big, fat, and slow.
Right. And that is why Singleton has almost no chance to make this roster barring Walker getting hurt (imho).
He played Winter Ball in the outfield. He should be capable in left and right. He also would be the one decent arm out there. For him, it is all going to come down to contact/extra base ratio. If he hits for enough power and walks enough - he can be a fixture in the outfield for a decade.... but that remains to be seen. Like many Astros prospects, he has warts and the player development group has tried to get him an approach to cover them up ...
If we pretend that Melton and Matthews are badass…: 2B Matthews LF Altuve DH Alvarez 1B Walker 3B Paredes C Diaz CF Melton RF McCormick SS Pena Bench: Dubon, Caratini, Whitcomb, Meyers
Brice Matthews next game in CF will be his first game in CF. Matthews also did not play CF in college. If the Astros are serious about Matthews in CF, he should start seeing AAA games with him in CF. We will see.
Some of it was that the coaches believe that Altuve lost a step defensively at second --- and some of it was that they had a few guys they believed could play well at second base. What I have heard is that the Astros coaches think that Matthews can be an exceptional fielder at second base and that he is comfortable there. He also impressed in centerfield but said he felt more comfortable on the infield. The bat speed and wrists on Matthews really stood out to me last year, the talent is there - and regardless of his size, with those wrists, he is capable of hitting a lot of homers. The problem I see is that he is still far too raw for someone with the amount of experience he has. Maybe he takes a step and turns into some version of Brandon Phillips or Barry Larkin like some Astros scouts have compared him to.
Brice Matthews has worked out a lot in centerfield with the player development staff.... the Astros are more aggressive than most teams when it comes to making positional changes.. at this point it is more an issue with the bat than glove.
I mean there are a lot of potential answers to being somewhere between good and great against RHP. The most important one is the will to try to do so through pretty strict platoon. you just can’t have anyone worse than Peña in the lineup against RHP because he’s got to play every day. givens Above average to awesome against RHP- Yordan, Altuve, Diaz, Walker, Paredes. Below average but needs to play- Peña Need to be average or above average against RHP (must find 3): Gamel, Singleton, Chas, Dezenzo, Melton, new chuckle**** at 2B whose name I don’t know, Caratini Can’t play against RHP very often- Meyers, Dubon (except as needed as our fill in for anyone banged up) if you want to play Jake against RHP for a stretch to see if something has clicked/ fine- but if not he’s 4th OF auto start against LHP and defensive replacement. in the - must find 3 group you can roster 5 of those guys- Carstini, Chad , plus 3 other guys that are basically going to be platoon partners. All those guys have a track record of being average to above average (or project to) at the MlB level. Again, this is all about the will to use guys appropriately. It’s really not that hard.
You like singleton a lot more than I do- but I don’t see why not. Caratini back up catcher. Diaz, Walker, Altuve, Pena, Paredes, Chas (hopefully), Yordan - everyday regulars Platoons: Dubon/Desenzo, Meyer//Gamel That leaves a spot for - singleton for backup 1B, backup DH, PH, Platoon bat. Dubon bwcks up everywhere else. I don’t see why that doesn’t work.
Singleton is a lot like Meyers. I was high on both guys and very keen to see them get a solid chance to show how good they could be because they had a lot of upside and had never been given a full 500+ pa season to establish themselves. And like Meyers, Singleton wasn’t terrible, but he pretty much proved he’s not a “good” player. On a team with roster flexibility/holes to platoon at 1B and/or DH, he’s a solid bat against RHP who takes a lot of pitches/walks and hits HR that will be in the Sportscenter top 10. But on this Astros team, where they have no 1B or DH pa available and have holes/platoons at multiple positions that aren’t 1B, Singleton is not a fit. Guillorme or Trammell or Gamel or Whitcomb or Hummel or Salazar have a lot more to offer this team as the 12th or 13th man. Of course, anytime you’re talking about the 13th man, it’s not really meaningful, because that player really shouldn’t be playing very much if at all (<150 pa across an entire season.) If/when he gets DFA I hope he passes thru because in terms of 1B/DH insurance stashed in AAA, he’s about as good as it gets, but I expect some team with an open 1B/DH spot against RHP will claim him.
