Sampo Gida said:I just find it hard to believe JBJ is not going to hit well enough to justify being in the lineup everyday at CF given his defense. Have him hit 9th and play him everyday. They should go to an OF next year with Betts in LF, JBJ in CF and Castillo RF. Bit short on power there, but the defense will be ok, and you look elsewhere for power.
Why not utilize the fact that Betts, Bradley, and Castillo can all play all three OF positions with quality defense, and make them and the LF into a four men, three spots rotation?MikeM said:
Where and who though?
Even in his good AAA samples Bradley has a big drop against LHP, so he's quite possibly going to be a platoon player at the ML level until he proves otherwise. Betts plays all out and could use a day off or two to help reduce the wear over a full season. Castillo is still something of an unknown, but at both the ML level and the AAA level the last two years he's had a significant split himself. Treat Bradley/Castillo as a 50/50 platoon with Castillo getting pretty much all the LH ABs and they each relieve Mookie and the LF during the week. Something like 7/10 games started for each of them, 8.5/10 games started for the LF and Betts.
Getting offense could be something like moving Hanley to 1B and signing Ben Zobrist on a short years, high dollars deal to play LF as well as a few spot starts at his usual eclectic mix of positions, most notably as the 1B when Hanley relieves Ortiz at DH against LHP. Add a free agent flier with high power potential, like say Kyle Blanks, to be the 4th/5th OF and the club would have a nice little collection of upside bets and broad positional coverage, using Zobrist and Holt to cover all the bases in case of injury.
Or they could bet on Hanley improving in LF and buy into the Chris Davis 2015 revitalization if the market for him doesn't go insane. Then Hanley could spell Ortiz and maybe Sandoval against LHP while getting a little time off himself from the three other OFs. Given how Owens and EdRod have looked the Porcello deal is what's really hamstringing them financially. Panda is at least the best of a bad 3B market and Hanley is a good bet to bounce back offensively next season. Even if Porcello was repeating his 2014 season his contract would look bad simply by how replaceable he is. Buchholz, Miley, EdRod, Owens, Wright, and Johnson in AAA isn't a pathetically bad SP crew. Decline the option on Buccholz and add Cueto/Zimmerman/etc. and instead it looks like a solid group with some real upside. Porcello is sitting on the money needed to really make that plus a Zobrist/Davis signing work.