KluberSociety
NBA Starter
- Joined
- Apr 10, 2018
- Messages
- 4,387
- Reaction score
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- 113
What makes you think Brennan is better defensively than Kwan? Mainly just saying that cause Kwan plays pretty damn good defense and even after a rough start where he was playing in LF and RF (in the majors at that) after getting mainly all CF reps in his career, he's still overall a plus defender in all of Statcast, DRS, and UZR. He also has upside offensively through adding more pop like he did in 2021. But all he really has to do is continue to play good defense and get on base and he's a 2.5 WAR guy. We need more not less 2.5 WAR guys. Add a little extra to that and he's a very good ballplayer. Brennan starts significantly below Kwan in contact skills and might be hitting the ball a little harder this year but has little track record of pop himself.I've like Walker for quite some time and he would be a nice addition.
I'd find out what some of these kids can do in the corner OF and even CF. If Brennan or Benson are as or more productive than Kwan and/or Straw then I would capitalize on their current values. I'm not saying any minor leaguer can or can't produce at the level Straw and Kwan are so I don't want to hear "you love your prospects". Kwan and Straw are good ballplayers with limited upside. We hope that Straw's 2nd half of the 21 season wasn't a fluke and what you see with Kwan is what you get. Few have the ability to put that bat on the ball like him, but one of those that can appears to be playing in Columbus right now and he has more upside and is better defensively so........
I don't know how they will fit all of Kwan, Straw, Jones, OGon, Brennan, Benson and Valera in. I can't even begin to think how to do it. Somebody is going to get shortchanged in all of this. Hopefully we don't get stuck with 2 slap hitting OFers and instead we have an OF that is an offensive force while playing very good defense.
Straw is having a miserable offensive year and STILL has 1.2 WAR which prorates to about league average over the course of the year. Based on Statcast x stats he's really not that much different than last year and overall he should revert back to about a 90 wRC+ guy instead of 70. With his speed and defense, that's a good ballplayer.
I'm sick of seeing these two guys denigrated as if they should be replaced in favor of guys who have proven nothing so far. We have a bunch of guys who we can try to slot into RF but it looks like the league caught on to OGonz and is already striking out Jones at a high rate, with other options either not on the 40 man or not really ready for prime time. Either way RF is what needs help and if we solve that the OF will be fine.