In 2014, the opening day bench was Maicer, Thole and Moises Sierra. So yes this is crappy bench but no it's not worse than at any time under AA. Barney is a much better defender than Izturis, Thole is Thole and 'Zeke is not worse than Sierra.
Because it was the longest stretch of the year without a day off. Monday off day followed by a no off day week followed by a Thursday off day. I don't think it can get any longer.
Is Dominguez a really good 3B? He's a garbage hitter who doesn't have a strong split. Offensively, he barely projects above Barney. Doesn't seem to bring much to the table even if he is more versatile than Montero.
Well this is puzzling but the fact that they didn't feel the need to rush a third catcher to the roster is a positive. Maybe they want to move Sanchez to the bullpen for a spell.
My guess is they would keep it quiet. Giving an 80 day suspension to an entire clubhouse would be too much of a s*** show. Who knows? Maybe it's already happened.
As Morosi pointed out this morning, the PED in question is illegal so it's not like you'd find it in an over the counter supplement unless it was tainted. The c) explanation is not impossible but it's pretty unlikely. If he didn't know, it's probably because he didn't want to know. It's doubtful that he was contaminated by a sanctioned product.
I was around and there's no way I'm going to get worked up about this. Devo is just shortening Devon. It's like some guy named James complaining that he was the first one to go by Jim.
Kind of reminds me of when Ivan Rodriguez started going by the nickname "Pudge". People thought it was weird and even a little wrong because that was Carlton Fisk's nickname but eventually everyone just got used to it and forgot that there was ever even a controversy.
I was going to make an argument that maybe the front office has a reason to see something in ole 'Zeke but that's before I realized that he's already 29 and has nearly 700 PAs of sub-700 OPS MLB baseball under his belt. Even his good MiLB seasons came at time when he was too old for his level. He's worse than I realized. I thought he was a guy who put up good numbers but failed the eye test but he's not even that. Whoever once said he had good MiLB number ignored the most important one (age).