Quote:
Originally Posted by Male29Dan
We dang sure won't be facing 95 starting LHPs this year, so does Napoli get that many starts against majority RHPs? He is a career .238/.329/.467 guy against RHPs (.289/.393/.538 against LHPs).
Also, it appears we are taking away another power bat (Vlad for example) from the lineup just to try to work around an injury-prone team. That is unfortunate. You could likewise say it's smart as trying to get a full 145-155 games out of Hamilton, Cruz, and Kinsler would be tremendous, but it is likewise unfortunate that it is required.
I see the flexibility - don't get me wrong. I see that this gives Murphy more PT, which is a good thing against RHPs (.288/.354/.487) but not as good against LHPs (.264/.307/.383). Of course you lose more production offensively from infield swapping, as putting Blanco in for Young hurts the offense a great deal (though obviously improving the defense).
I don't know - no solution is ideal I guess from those on the table so I guess we should wait and see how it all unfolds rather than judging things when more movement is on the horizon.
Personally, given the trade for Napoli, I say you trade Young for pitching (not sure what you can get for him from Colorado), sign Vlad, AND find a way to pull Cameron away from Boston to face LHPs. It would obviously be nice to have a more capable UIF offensively, but securing Cameron would be hard enough.
Then you have the following against LHPs:
SS - Andrus
2B - Kinsler
LF - Hamilton
3B - Beltre
RF - Cruz
DH - Vlad
1B - Napoli
CF - Cameron
C - Torrealba
...and the following lineup against RHPs:
SS - Andrus
2B - Kinsler
LF - Hamilton
3B - Beltre
RF - Cruz
DH - Vlad
1B - Moreland
C - Torrealba
CF - Borbon
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Napoli is a signifigantly better hitter against lefties than Vlad and murphy is as good against righties as vlad so I dont really see the need for vlad at this point. I love Vlad and Ill wish him the best wherever he goes but I dont think hes a good fit right now. I honestly dont see a need to platoon Moreland but i would make sure that the 20 or so games he gets off are against lefties.
Young also struggled mightily against righties last year so its not like its a given that he eats up righties this year either. I know weve been down this road and we just disagree(which I understand your point) but I will be pleasantly shocked if we get anything more than 285/330/430 out of Young next year and I will be seriously disappointed if we get anything less than 260/345/480 out of Napoli next year(given the assumption he is used correctly) so I dont really see a big reason to worry about young.