The word Yankee probably comes from English decendants in New England referring to the Dutch settlers in New York, many of whom made their own cheese. The Dutch word for cheese maker sounds a lot like yankee.
Thanks to a British Major headquartered in New York, it became a derisive term for American colonists who fought in the Revolution. He wrote Yankee Doodle as a drinking song for British soldiers.
Instead of being insulted, American soldiers loved it, and began playing and singing it, sometimes even as they marched into battle.
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Enough of that, back to baseball, specifically Oscar Gonzalez.
I do not YET see the problem with his defense. Outside of two stupid plays...throwing a ball in the stands and outright dropping a routine fly...he hasn't been that bad. Not outstanding, but okay. He's only a rookie, and suffers in the eyes of fans from playing with two GGs in the outfield.
He gets blamed for not hitting the cutoff man a few times, but in at least one instance that was on the cutoff man, whose job it is to line up right and make the correct decision about catching the ball.
It is unlikely that Naylor will ever be able to play in the field every day, so the DH spot is at least partially filled. To get his regular at bats, Oscar is gonna have to play a lot in RF. We also still need a RH bat capable of playing first, whether Miller, Arias, or an outside addition. That puts Naylor at DH, too.
Oscar does chase pitches outside the zone too much, but he is still effective. In about 520 total PAs this year he has 20 homers and 55 XBHs. Only Jose and Gimenez have that kind of production this year. Some guys are good bad ball hitters. Oscar wouldn't be the first. Oscar makes contact and doesn't strike out much. Is there room for improvement? Sure. But he looks pretty good as is.
He's the kind of power-contact swinger that I dont want to see become too selective ..and miss opportunities to crush a baseball early in the count.
I dont understand the love affair with selective hitters who still strike out a lot.
