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2024 Season | Series #9 | Guardians @ Braves | April 26-28, 2024

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I honestly just don't think we're as stacked on MIF as we thought we were. With Rocchio, I just don't think he is helping this division leading team win ballgames now. So I don't see why demotion is out of question for him. Either you play him and he may hurt your winning chances or you bench him and that would be worse for his development than playing in AAA I would figure. That is when demotion does sound like a decent option.

I'm not sure if Freeman is just considered not good enough to play MIF but it's not like we don't have an option there already on the roster to take some of that playing time. If we were to say call up JRod (I am mostly a nonbeliever but it might make sense), we could send Rocchio down and give Freeman more IF reps. Laureano is the other obvious option but I don't expect him gone this soon.

I'm also not convinced at all on Arias's SpongeBob swing-at-everything approach this year.
 
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A few thoughts..

1) This board abhors veteran players who aren't superstars. Merely being average isn't good enough, because there is always some kid in Columbus who is guaranteed to be better.

2) In his career, Laureanos wRC+ after April is roughly 112. He looks really, really bad right now. It's happened before.

3) Rocchio has to improve his results.

His EV, launch angle, barrel %, LD rate are all up. His GB rate is down. His K rate is down and his BB rate is up. His BABIP is
.246.

Which stat doesn't match?

3) This board in general doesn't give credence to intangibles...even when they are off the charts. Hedges isn't going anywhere.

4) Fry should play more...period.
 
CATS44 said:
3) Rocchio has to improve his results.

His EV, launch angle, barrel %, LD rate are all up. His GB rate is down. His K rate is down and his BB rate is up. His BABIP is
.246.

Which stat doesn't match?
Click to expand...

See, most of these are disingenuous though.

Are they up? Sure. It's hard not to go up from worst in baseball last year in a number of these areas you are saying are "better". And that is the issue. He doesn't have to get "better", he has to get considerably better, or the results won't change.

You know what BABIP tends to correlate the most with? Exit velocity, barrel rate, hard hit%. High figures in those 3 tend to correlate with high BABIP figures. Low figures in those 3 tend to correlate with low BABIP figures. It's common sense too. A harder hit ball is harder to field, a softer hit ball is easier to field. You pointing out his BABIP as some kind of got ya is, in reality, you hoping he gets lucky more vs getting better than his current state.

His avg EV went from 85.8 to 87.2 MPH, which is still in the bottom 4th of the league. His barrel rate went from 0% to 3.2%, which is still in the bottom 4th of the league. His hard hit rate went from 18.2% to 24.2%, which is bottom 5th percentile in baseball. His “better” is still really bad. And the results and expected results mirror that.

And that's not even the issue. You can take growing pains at the plate if the player is offering you value elsewhere, as we saw with Kwan and Gimenez last year and even saw with Straw at times putting up 1 to 2 WAR solely off his defense and baserunning.

Rocchio effects the game in 0 areas right now. A lot of his game has to come up. Which is why I still laugh at the idea of him being "the safer" prospect. He doesn't have a carrying tool or 2 to provide ready-made value in the MLB while the rest of his game grows. You should not be a negative fWAR player at a defensive position with positive WAR value built into it as an every day SS.

He doesn't "have to improve his results", that implies what he is doing now is good enough, which is ridiculous. He needs to get better in a number areas for the results to improve.
 
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Andres is in a funk. Hope he snaps out of it quickly.
 
Criznit said:
Andres is in a funk. Hope he snaps out of it quickly.
Click to expand...
So we continue the Cleveland tradition of a weak #2 hole. I am not sure why we feel the need to keep this up but it's definitely a thing. Vogt may have changed some things but this one he will barely touch.
 
BimboColesHair said:
I've been pretty vocal about my concern for where he was going as a prospect since last year, even with decent AAA numbers.

He hasn’t done anything to alleviate those concerns.
Click to expand...

Is it reasonable to consider sending him down to work on his issues while Arias is everyday SS and we bring up a Schneeman type to fill the utility role?
 
KluberSociety said:
So we continue the Cleveland tradition of a weak #2 hole. I am not sure why we feel the need to keep this up but it's definitely a thing. Vogt may have changed some things but this one he will barely touch.
Click to expand...

We lack OBP% guys... Tell me who has good OBP% on this team...
 
BimboColesHair said:
See, most of these are disingenuous though.

Are they up? Sure. It's hard not to go up from worst in baseball last year in a number of these areas you are saying are "better". And that is the issue. He doesn't have to get "better", he has to get considerably better, or the results won't change.

You know what BABIP tends to correlate the most with? Exit velocity, barrel rate, hard hit%. High figures in those 3 tend to correlate with high BABIP figures. Low figures in those 3 tend to correlate with low BABIP figures. It's common sense too. A harder hit ball is harder to field, a softer hit ball is easier to field. You pointing out his BABIP as some kind of got ya is, in reality, you hoping he gets lucky more vs getting better than his current state.

His avg EV went from 85.8 to 87.2 MPH, which is still in the bottom 4th of the league. His barrel rate went from 0% to 3.2%, which is still in the bottom 4th of the league. His hard hit rate went from 18.2% to 24.2%, which is bottom 5th percentile in baseball.

And that's not even the issue. You can take growing pains at the plate if the player is offering you value elsewhere, as we saw with Kwan and Gimenez last year and even saw with Straw at times putting up 1 to 2 WAR solely off his defense and baserunning.

Rocchio effects the game in 0 areas right now. A lot of his game has to come up. Which is why I still laugh at the idea of him being "the safer" prospect. He doesn't have a carrying tool or 2 to provide ready-made value in the MLB while the rest of his game grows. You should not be a negative fWAR player at a defensive position with positive WAR value built into it as an every day SS.

He doesn't "have to improve his results", that implies what he is doing now is good enough, which is ridiculous. He needs to get better in a number areas for the results to improve.
Click to expand...
We shall see.

But you could say much the same thing about a younger Andres Gimenez.
 
sportscoach said:
We lack OBP% guys... Tell me who has good OBP% on this team...
Click to expand...
Low OBP can hide better in the 3 hole. I've been a long advocate of putting Jose in the 2 hole although he isn't exactly looking like a high OBP guy himself, but higher than Gimenez probably.

I guess hopefully we can hope one of our prospects can fill that 2 hole better, but it seems like whenever we have good hitters we throw them at #3 or #4, and neglect #2.
 
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