Heyward
<B>Voted Worst Poster <br>'13, '14, '15 (Co-Winner
Stl, LA, SF, Was are all easily better than we are.
So we have to beat out alot of teams for 1 spot.
Trading Justin Upton AND Jason Heyward?
- Thread starter CrimsonCowboy
- Start date
Stl, LA, SF, Was are all easily better than we are.
So we have to beat out alot of teams for 1 spot.
The Giants won 88 games this year. That's pretty meh.
I think the Royals have shown (once again) that anything is possible in the playoffs as long as you get in.
Red Sox struck out 20.5% of the time last year which was good for 9th in baseball and 5th in the AL. Giants are at 20.5% as well this year. Strikeouts aren't the problem. Strikeouts combined with no walks and no power is. And the Braves have a lot of that. Our two best hitters both struck out over 20% and came in at 11th and 43rd respectively in all of baseball in K%. Even with those high K rate something tells me if we had a lineup full of Justin's and Freddie's we would be doing just fine.
But you're right. Our offense does need a drastic change. As is we have 4 spots out of 8 that are bad hitters. And that goes up to 5 when Gattis has the day off. You simply can't win many games when half to two-thirds of your offense is sporting a low 600 OPS.
50PoundHead
Hessmania Forever
Bingo.
Red Sox are always built to Fenway (where a pop fly to LF is an extra base hit) so the K/Reward ration is usually pretty high there. Thing about the Giants is that they can win a lot of ways. Bochy doesn't run a lot and the team isn't brimming with power, but they have enough power spread through the line-up that you can't take a hitter off.
But to your basic point, you are right on the mark. I don't particularly subscribe to the "K's are alright" approach, but our problem this year is that half of the hitters in our line-up were lousy hitters and that goes for the guys who K a lot (M. Upton and Johnson) and those who didn't (Simmons, Laird). I'll give La Stella some rope, because he's a rookie, but he kind of fell off the cliff late.
Heyward
<B>Voted Worst Poster <br>'13, '14, '15 (Co-Winner
Pagan, Cain have been out for most of the year.
Will be interesting if they pay Panda though.
Them losing Cain likely helped. He was having the worst year of his career. And let's not act like they were the only team to deal with injuries.
Heyward
<B>Voted Worst Poster <br>'13, '14, '15 (Co-Winner
They weren't, they are still better than we are, i dont see how thats even debateable.
NYCBrave
Well-known member
I watched just about every game, just as I did in 2013, and just as I did in every year since the mid 90's. Our teams in 2013 and 2014 were not that much different in terms of players (in fact we should have been better in 2014 - replace McCann with Gattis, replace Uggla with LaStella), we just had a ton of underachievers. I'm not going to act like this isn't a flawed lineup, but I'm also not going to act like we don't have a ton of potential that has yet to pan out for us. If things break right, we can easily win this division again. But that's the life of a mid payroll team, you pretty much need everything to break right in order to have a chance each year.
You want to move The best closer in the majors for basically no return? Or am I reading this wrong?
cajunrevenge
Well-known member
You want the Tigers to give us something for paying 25 million a year for a closer and BJ?
sturg33
I
The return is $25 Million in salary relief.
The Braves didn't have a terrible offense because they struck out a lot. The offense was terrible because the guys playing SS, CF, 3B, 2B and C a good portion of the time put up an OBP of .300 or worse. And then the manager insisted on putting the worst hitter in the top 1-2 spots for half the season.
There are 3.5 (since Gattis is always on the shelf) good hitters on this team. TLS is probably good enough to be an average hitter, and the rest are just awful...as in nauseatingly bad.
A team that is contending for a championship can carry a terrible hitter if that player is a stud defensively like Simmons. A contending team can NOT afford to have Simmons, BJ, CJ and CB in the lineup at the same time.
For 5 months they weren't. The Braves tanked badly for about 5 weeks. I will put more stock into what they have done the last 3-4 years than 1 month.
The Royals were the 2nd best team in all of baseball after the all star. Lets not act like they lucked into the postseason here with some mediocre team.
cajunrevenge
Well-known member
I wouldn't say lucked into the post season but they are worse than several braves teams that lost in the first round.
yeezus
It's OVER 5,000!
They are worse than several teams that lost in the playoffs this year.
zitothebrave
Connoisseur of Minors
best record does not equal best team,
Royals in the second half of the season had a 93 wRC+, in the first half a 94 wRC+. Second half they had an 82/91/100 ERA/FIP/xFIP- First half 97/101/104
So they pitched better n the second half. They may have been the second best team overall but if they were it's primarily because the teams around them struggled, Royals biggest improvement first half vs second half was defensively. Which I know you're not a believer in defensive stats.