How Many 2018 Regular Season Games Will JDM Start in the OF?

How Many 2018 Regular Season Games Will JDM Start in the OF?


  • Total voters
    122

Pozo the Clown

New Member
Sep 13, 2006
744
Per the linked article below:

"Mookie Betts will be back in center field soon....

Manager Alex Cora has laid out his plans to use Betts in center field occasionally during road games this season in a scenario that would have J.D. Martinez on the field in one of the corner spots while giving Jackie Bradley Jr.some rest."

This begs the question which is the basis of the poll. What say you SoSH?

http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/...ox_notebook_mookie_betts_to_play_cf_this_week
 

santadevil

wears depends
Silver Supporter
SoSH Member
Aug 1, 2006
6,472
Saskatchestan
Does it beg the question?
Or just raise it?

I voted 20-40 games.
I'm sure there will also be an injury at some point and he'll end up starting like 10 games in a row.
 

ItOnceWasMyLife

Member
SoSH Member
Sep 16, 2008
1,827
I think it may be a lot because I do not have confidence that JBJ will hit. So sit JBJ (late inning defense) send Beni to CF, JDM to left and Hanley to regular DH. You add Moreland more consistently with a drop on OF def. sure, but mitigated in Fenway games.
 

Hank Scorpio

Member
SoSH Member
Apr 1, 2013
6,914
Salem, NH
I think it may be a lot because I do not have confidence that JBJ will hit. So sit JBJ (late inning defense) send Beni to CF, JDM to left and Hanley to regular DH. You add Moreland more consistently with a drop on OF def. sure, but mitigated in Fenway games.
On July 7th, 2017 JBJ had an OPS of .858, before getting the day off. After the day off, he went through a long slump, and began striking out more than usual. Anyone recall why he was sat on July 8th? I'm wondering if he aggravated something...

This was following a 2015 and 2016 in which his OPS was .832 and .835 - so I wouldn't call his strong first half a fluke (not that you did). I think he's closer to an .800 OPS guy than a .700 OPS guy, if he stays healthy, and wouldn't discount his potential offensive contribution - as streaky as he can be.
 

streeter88

Member
SoSH Member
Apr 2, 2006
1,807
Melbourne, Australia
If there is a substantial bounce in the performance of the three OFers, such as some have predicted, JDM will see lots of DH time. If not, then he would likely get more starts in left. Be interesting to see how he fares with the Monster.

Edit: grammar
 

WheresDewey

New Member
Nov 18, 2007
131
Taiwan
I imagine he at least plays the 20 interleague games, barring injury. It's not hard to imagine him picking up 10+ additional games or so.
 

Minneapolis Millers

Wants you to please think of the Twins fans!
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
4,753
Twin Cities
30, once a week and most away interLeague games. Holt/Nunez/Swihart will also sub in the OF. Cora will try to keep everyone healthy and happy.
 

Savin Hillbilly

loves the secret sauce
SoSH Member
Jul 10, 2007
18,783
The wrong side of the bridge....
I just did a breakdown of likely combinations by home/road, AL/NL and pitcher handedness (assuming a 118/44 R/L split, a little less extreme than last year's 125/37, but still more righty-heavy than MLB averages).

The set of scenarios that seemed most plausible resulted in this distribution of playing time across the five relevant positions (LF/CF/RF/DH/1B). It involves 37 OF starts for JDM:

JDM: 154 starts (117 DH, 20 LF, 17 RF)
Betts: 153 starts (145 RF, 8 CF)
JBJ: 148 starts (all CF)
Benintendi: 148 starts (142 LF, 6 CF)
Hanley: 99 starts (64 1B, 35 DH)
Moreland: 98 starts (all 1B)

The breakdown looked like this, for those interested in the granular version:

ScenarioGamesLFCFRFDH1B
Home vs. R59BeniJBJBettsJDMMoreland
Home vs. L (1)10BeniJBJBettsJDMHanley
Home vs. L (2)6JDMJBJBettsHanleyMoreland
Home vs. L (3)6JDMBeniBettsHanleyMoreland
AL road vs. R (1)42BeniJBJBettsJDMHanley
AL road vs. R (2)5BeniJBJJDMHanleyMoreland
AL road vs. R (3)5BeniJBJBettsHanleyMoreland
AL road vs. L (1)8BeniBettsJDMHanleyMoreland
AL road vs. L (2)5JDMJBJBettsHanleyMoreland
AL road vs. L (3)6BeniJBJBettsJDMHanley
NL road vs. R (1)4BeniJBJJDM - Moreland
NL road vs. R (2)3BeniJBJBetts - Hanley
NL road vs. L3JDMJBJBetts - Hanley


This assumes that everyone is healthy all year and that Swihart/Holt/Nunez et al get zero outfield starts, neither of which seems likely, so this is kind of an ideal rather than a real-world projection.

Also, I kind of fudged the breakdown of Hanley/Moreland 1B starts in games vs. RHP where JDM is DHing by putting all the Moreland starts at home and all the Hanley ones on the road. In reality I assume both guys will get a mix of home and road starts in that scenario, but I think the totals will likely be in the neighborhood of that 60/40 breakdown, and since Mitchy uses Fenway so well it made sense to do it that way.
 
Last edited:

lexrageorge

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 31, 2007
18,096
That seems like a reasonable breakdown. Cora seems like he will work to give his regular OF'ers at least 10 games off each when healthy to try to keep everyone fresh down the stretch. Add in a periodic short term injury or two, and take away couple of JDM starts so that one of the other backups gets a start, and you likely have 30-35 games, assuming no DL stints for the starters. If two of the starters each spend one stint on the 15-day DL (and each stint is right around 15 days), you may see JDM get closer to 40 starts in the field.
 

dbn

Member
SoSH Member
Feb 10, 2007
7,785
La Mancha.
I went with 40-60, expecting it to be closer to 40 than 60. I'm making the reasonable assumption that one or more of the OFBs will have injury/slump issues, and the hopeful assumption that JDM won't.
 

judyb

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 18, 2005
4,444
Wilmington MA
Yeah, I went 40-60, too, but choosing between 20-40 and 40-60 was tough for me because if you asked me to guess any 10 game margin, I would have gone with 35-45.