MIKE OLT!

[Powdered Toast Man]

I hope the cubs are trying to trade valbuena soon, if not, I'm confused as to why Renterria is playing him over Olt.

I kind of just assumed they were trying to build up Olt's confidence by batting him only against lefties at first, then easing him in against righties. Given how terrible the last year and half have been for him they might be afraid of him suffering through an early slump if he struggles to catch up against major league right handed pitching to start.

I hope people read what you wrote here, process it, and nod their head in agreement like I just did.

I did. Because it's correct.

Olt's not going to play every day. And if he did he wouldn't single handedly make this lineup good.

Agreed.  Right now, he's not even hitting lefties.  I think he'll be fine but--though I was initially as annoyed as BH-- I don't think there's any harm in easing him in.

Well, let me play the part of the dumb guy like always. Why not play Olt most days? This is how I sees it--Olt is essentially losing AB's to Barney, right? I think the better lineup would be to play Olt at third, and have this kind of triumvirate of evil in Bonerfacio, Ruggiano and Valbuena tackling CF/2B depending on the pitcher.

Against RHP, Bonerfacio at CF, Valbuena at 2B; against LHP, Bonerfacio at 2B and Ruggiano in CF. Or does that accomplish anything because Ruggiano is still kinda hurt and not that great? I don't know...obviously.

I think the idea is that, because Olt is overmatched against LHP, it might be a good idea to ease him into it for his own sake. It shouldn't be about "the better lineup" on any given day. It should be about a) what's best for the players' development and b) what's best in terms of setting up Oopstink to make trades towards more/stiffer futureboners.

I'm all for what's better for his development, but I kind of don't agree that sitting half the time is better for him. Is it totally out of this world to think that the more pitchers he sees the more he learns?

6th game of the season. 6th game of the season. 6th game of the season. 6th game of the season. 6th game of the season. 6th game of the season. 6th game of the season. 6th game of the season. 6th game of the season. 6th game of the season. 6th game of the season. 6th game of the season. 6th game of the season. 6th game of the season. 6th game of the season. 6th game of the season. 6th game of the season. 6th game of the season. 6th game of the season. 6th game of the season. 6th game of the season. 6th game of the season. 6th game of the season. 6th game of the season.

You got me there.

[Saul Goodman]

I hope the cubs are trying to trade valbuena soon, if not, I'm confused as to why Renterria is playing him over Olt.

I kind of just assumed they were trying to build up Olt's confidence by batting him only against lefties at first, then easing him in against righties. Given how terrible the last year and half have been for him they might be afraid of him suffering through an early slump if he struggles to catch up against major league right handed pitching to start.

I hope people read what you wrote here, process it, and nod their head in agreement like I just did.

I did. Because it's correct.

Olt's not going to play every day. And if he did he wouldn't single handedly make this lineup good.

Agreed.  Right now, he's not even hitting lefties.  I think he'll be fine but--though I was initially as annoyed as BH-- I don't think there's any harm in easing him in.

Well, let me play the part of the dumb guy like always. Why not play Olt most days? This is how I sees it--Olt is essentially losing AB's to Barney, right? I think the better lineup would be to play Olt at third, and have this kind of triumvirate of evil in Bonerfacio, Ruggiano and Valbuena tackling CF/2B depending on the pitcher.

Against RHP, Bonerfacio at CF, Valbuena at 2B; against LHP, Bonerfacio at 2B and Ruggiano in CF. Or does that accomplish anything because Ruggiano is still kinda hurt and not that great? I don't know...obviously.












MY COLT!

BONERFACE.

[World's #1 Astros Fan]

Bump for climbing up to .200 while leading a the team in HR and throwing some leather at 3rd this far.

Might as we'll take the reins off, let him play everyday now.  Valbuena'd be better served in a 2B platoon anyway,

MY COLT!

[Eli]

Bump for climbing up to .200 while leading a the team in HR and throwing some leather at 3rd this far.

Might as we'll take the reins off, let him play everyday now.  Valbuena'd be better served in a 2B platoon anyway,

MY COLT!

He's basically early-career Mark Reynolds right now. That's not the worst thing, given where he was a year ago.

[Tony]

Might as we'll take the reins off, let him play everyday now.

This needs to happen.

[Slaky]

Might as we'll take the reins off, let him play everyday now.

This needs to happen.

Renteria says it's time. Also he's hitting .195

[World's #1 Astros Fan]

Might as we'll take the reins off, let him play everyday now.

This needs to happen.

Renteria says it's time. Also he's hitting .195

I know.  He struck out after reaching that lofty mark with the HR.  Still, after a 1-14 start or something like that, I'm glad he didn't  just get buried.  I suppose he can still fall all the way down to .092, but with the power he's demonstrated--which should earn him better pitch selection as time goes on--I think it's more lilely he has a decent run in him to get ALL THE WAY UP to .250 or so and stay around there.  If he can do that and hit 20 HR's in his first year (which he's easily on pace for), it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, like Eli said.

[Quality Start Machine]

[R-V]

Bump for climbing up to .200 while leading a the team in HR and throwing some leather at 3rd this far.

Might as we'll take the reins off, let him play everyday now.  Valbuena'd be better served in a 2B platoon anyway,

MY COLT!

He's basically early-career Mark Reynolds right now. That's not the worst thing, given where he was a year ago.

Speaking of player comps, it's still very early but Rizzo's plate approach has been great this year. I'd take Joey Votto with a bit less power, who is the guy he's sitting next to in the 1B WAR rankings at the moment. Side question - why are basically all 1B on the Fangraphs leaderboard showing negative defensive WAR at the moment? Some early season oddity of how that is calculated?

[Quality Start Machine]

Bump for climbing up to .200 while leading a the team in HR and throwing some leather at 3rd this far.

Might as we'll take the reins off, let him play everyday now.  Valbuena'd be better served in a 2B platoon anyway,

MY COLT!

He's basically early-career Mark Reynolds right now. That's not the worst thing, given where he was a year ago.

Speaking of player comps, it's still very early but Rizzo's plate approach has been great this year. I'd take Joey Votto with a bit less power, who is the guy he's sitting next to in the 1B WAR rankings at the moment. Side question - why are basically all 1B on the Fangraphs leaderboard showing negative defensive WAR at the moment? Some early season oddity of how that is calculated?

If he keeps getting ahead in counts, he'll see more fastballs and his power numbers should climb.

[Eli]

Bump for climbing up to .200 while leading a the team in HR and throwing some leather at 3rd this far.

Might as we'll take the reins off, let him play everyday now.  Valbuena'd be better served in a 2B platoon anyway,

MY COLT!

He's basically early-career Mark Reynolds right now. That's not the worst thing, given where he was a year ago.

Speaking of player comps, it's still very early but Rizzo's plate approach has been great this year. I'd take Joey Votto with a bit less power, who is the guy he's sitting next to in the 1B WAR rankings at the moment. Side question - why are basically all 1B on the Fangraphs leaderboard showing negative defensive WAR at the moment? Some early season oddity of how that is calculated?

If he keeps getting ahead in counts, he'll see more fastballs and his power numbers should climb.

Also, if Rizzo can establish the run, he should have more success with the play-action pass.

[J. Walter Weatherman]

Side question - why are basically all 1B on the Fangraphs leaderboard showing negative defensive WAR at the moment? Some early season oddity of how that is calculated?

It appears that Fangraphs rolls the positional adjustment into the defensive component of WAR rather than the offensive, to better allow us to compare players' defending on an absolute scale.

You can sort of see this on the defensive stats page by comparing to UZR column to Def. I believe that UZR is the entire basis for Def but, while the baseline for the former is the average player at a particular position, the latter tries to represent defensive value relative to all defenders, regardless of position.

[InternetApex]

Bump for climbing up to .200 while leading a the team in HR and throwing some leather at 3rd this far.

Might as we'll take the reins off, let him play everyday now.  Valbuena'd be better served in a 2B platoon anyway,

MY COLT!

He's basically early-career Mark Reynolds right now. That's not the worst thing, given where he was a year ago.

Speaking of player comps, it's still very early but Rizzo's plate approach has been great this year. I'd take Joey Votto with a bit less power, who is the guy he's sitting next to in the 1B WAR rankings at the moment. Side question - why are basically all 1B on the Fangraphs leaderboard showing negative defensive WAR at the moment? Some early season oddity of how that is calculated?

If he keeps getting ahead in counts, he'll see more fastballs and his power numbers should climb.

Also, if Rizzo can establish the run, he should have more success with the play-action pass.

Boom. Pimp it a little and touch 'em all.

[Tonker]

Fuck Joey Votto.

[J. Walter Weatherman]

Side question - why are basically all 1B on the Fangraphs leaderboard showing negative defensive WAR at the moment? Some early season oddity of how that is calculated?

It appears that Fangraphs rolls the positional adjustment into the defensive component of WAR rather than the offensive, to better allow us to compare players' defending on an absolute scale.

You can sort of see this on the defensive stats page by comparing to UZR column to Def. I believe that UZR is the entire basis for Def but, while the baseline for the former is the average player at a particular position, the latter tries to represent defensive value relative to all defenders, regardless of position.

Here:

...Prior to this rollout, we listed "Fld" as our primary defensive rating on both the dashboard and the fielding section, which solely rated players relative to average at their specific positions, but that treats all positions as if they are equal in value, which is clearly not true. Pretty much every shortstop is a better defender than every first baseman, even the ones with negative ratings at SS compared to the guys with positive ratings at 1B. But, with the Fld metric, this wasn't always obvious, and it led to people using a metric that rates players at their position as if that was their standing in the league overall.

By adding the positional adjustment into the fielding rating to create Defense, we're now presenting a much better view of who the best defenders actually are. Catchers get a big boost here as well, as they have the largest positional adjustment of any spot on the field, and this better recognizes their contributions, even if they aren't necessarily rated dramatically higher than other catchers. Just being a catcher has a lot of value, and this helps display that value more correctly.

...

This also helps level the playing field for guys who shift between positions. Utility players who spend parts of their season at multiple positions, or even regulars who bounce around between spots like Ben Zobrist, do not have their defensive performance easily described by a single UZR rating. If a guy plays five positions and has a +5 UZR, you don't really know what that +5 is relative to. Now, with the fielding component added in, you know that the baseline is an average defender across all positions.