Can someone explain the logic for penciling Betts in for a starting OF job next season, considering the struggles of Bradley and Bogaerts this year? He's played well so far, but so did Xander in much higher leverage situations (albeit, a much smaller sample) last year.
Craig has looked awful, true, but are we absolutely convinced that Betts is MLB-ready?
Let's stop drawing these equivalences between Bogaerts last year and Betts this year.
Bogaerts threw up a .680 OPS in the regular season, and an impressive .893 in the postseason.
This was over a grand total of 84 plate appearances. He looked poised during the post-season, sure, but his cumulative line in the regular season was a little better than the one he had this year. Regardless, the sample sizes are small.
Betts, on the other hand, has excelled in a way Bogaerts never has at every level he's come to. Since being promoted to Salem, he's hit for better than a .410 OBP and a .500 slugging percentage, and has shown that he not only knows the strike zone, but can control it. His ability to make contact and drive the ball is the kind of pairing you rarely see from any player. His major league OPS+ of 128 he's accumulated in nearly three times as many PA as Bogaerts did at the end of last year. Hardly a sample size large enough to say he's going to be an excellent major leaguer for years to come. But then again, he's got his entire minor league track record, and anyone who has been watching the games has seen an ability to drive tough pitches, lay off
extremely tough sliders and curveballs off the plate, and waste pitches his timing is a little off on. He's looked as good at it as anyone on the team.
If you're point is just that it's possible Mookie will struggle, then well, yeah -- it's possible for even established major leaguers to struggle. Say hello to Daniel Nava, Jonny Gomes, Stephen Drew. If you're point is that we shouldn't pencil in Betts because minor leaguers often struggle at first, then what's the point of having a minor leagues in the first place?
He should be a game-changer on this team next year, at least on the offensive end. We'll have to struggle through some growing pains with him on defense in the outfield.
As to pitching: the recent, explosive history of pitcher's arms exploding, does not encourage me with regards to the prognosis of signing both Lester and Shields. I think there's a pretty good chance we make a move on Lester in order to consolidate the rotation some, but I don't like the idea of locking up so much money in both of those guys. And I like the idea of signing Lester more than I do Shields -- I'd much rather pay good money for Lester's 30-33 seasons and take the risk on the next three or four seasons, then pay good money for the risk of Shields 33-36 seasons. If we do that, we have Lester, Buchholz and Kelly.
Nobody, as far as I can tell, wants to wait while we figure out which of Ranaudo, Webster, Rubby, Barnes, Workman, Rodriguez, Escobar, Wright and Owens is a major league quality starting pitcher. Each has his *thing*, which has been hashed and rehashed, that he needs to work out.
But we also might just have to get used to the idea of the back end of the rotation, for a little while at least, being used as a place for these guys to get used to the major leagues. Bud Norris and Chris Tillman, two names that came up upthread, both had issues with control at the minor league and major league level before sorting themselves out. Hell, so did Jon Lester. Shields has always had excellent control, but he was striking out 7.0/9 at A+ at one point. We're just going to have to let these guys try to figure it out. Rubby has already improved his control -- 3.1 BB/9 in the majors, down from 3.8 at AAA this year, down from 5.4 at AAA last year. If this means we're a wild card team next year, then we'll have to deal with that. Better than having an albatross like Sabathia or Santana or the entire Giants pitching rotation. Will all of these guys shake out? No, certainly not. But that's precisely why we're so lucky to have so many of them.