Smart Baseball: Dusty Baker continues to put Anthony Rendon (.402 wOBA) sixth in the batting order.
Who is hitting second today for the Nats? Ryan Raburn! Who has the last few weeks? Brian Goodwin! Both project for a wOBA around .300 and are replacement level talents.
Then why are people begging for them to be promoted?
Bo and Vlad are tiny little babies. I'm fine with them being treated like babies, for now.
Next year Bo can go A+ --> AA --> AAA
(For the record, the competition is notably different. And so is the environment).
Mookie kind of skipped his chance to place highly on the prospect lists by ascending too fast. In 2014 he debuted at AA, AAA, and MLB, using up his rookie eligibility.
Same thing happened with Goldy FWIW.
That was one part of it.
Oh he has. The slightly open stance is gone, the tall setup with the high hands and exaggerated barrel tip is gone (these are all things his brother used to do). The toe tap was gone before he went pro.
His basic swing now is basically what Donaldson does. It's still loud and proud #Pride2017 but it's not stupid.
He also dramatically changes his approach/swing with 2 strikes and becomes a right handed Raimel Tapia. And when facing certain pitchers or in certain situations he uses different swings - different amounts of leg kick, basically. It's all very cool. He's a hitting genius.
Not fat per se, just kind of doughy. Not obviously athletic. If you simply eyeballed his high school team you might have pegged him as the LF or 1B. Or catcher.
I actually think the kind of bad high school body probably turned some scouts off.
He looks completely different now.