Got pretty much the same offer from another team, and a third team that sniffed, but I'm just going to keep him and see if he gets traded. He projects decently.
I can't imagine spending more than a couple minutes with Stroman and not wanting to bail the first chance I got. Guy acts like the successful athlete version of fatcow.
When someone reports a home to first time aren't they filtering out plays where the player isn't running hard? I'm just reporting what was said, and I don't have any interest in defending it, but it seems silly that they'd report every contact play if the player is slowly jogging out of the box.
Even so, Pompey has slugged 0.362 in 734 AAA plate appearances. He's probably going to hit like Kevin Pillar, maybe worse. Defense will have to be his carrying tool, and we've seen conflicting reports about how competent he is out there.
If you can't leave the box quick on a ground ball from time to time for fear of injury, how can you be expected to play the OF, which requires you to sprint in short burts?
I really hate the inclination this org seems to have to gift roster spots to incumbents with replacement-level talent who happened to finish a few runs above replacement the previous season. Colabello and Goins last year. Carrera this year. Ezequiel Carrera should not be any more than a 5th OF on a team with designs on winning. If he's the strong side of a LF platoon... god help us all.
Listening to Effectively Wild, and Ben apparently asked Mike Petriello if Bautista's home to first times declined in 2016 relative to 2015, and Mike wouldn't give him the numbers because Bautista's 2016 times were so bad that he wasn't sure they were accurate.
Bautista could put up some legendary UZR numbers if left in the OF all year.
I'd rather have the flexibility of cutting ties at any time with no commitment than have a 10M option on his 2021 season. What are the odds that 32-year old Pillar is good enough to get significantly more than that in free agency?
He has a much more diversified skill set. Pillar is in his prime and is an 85 wRC+ bat, and needs to remain an elite CF defender to have any value. I don't think you bet on that happening in his age-32 season, 5 years down the road.