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Just more weaksauce strawman type arguments from BJMB's most insufferable poster.

That was the most logical demotion of anyone in the pen given Swanson's extended struggles.

I don't know if I should be terrified that you are so obsessed about me or whether I should be satisfied that I'm living in your head rent free. It seems as though you mention me by name something like 10 times per day so I must have made a very solid impression.

There were enough examples of this kind of output (something like scoring 9 runs 4 times in 10 days) that it's not a total fluke. I still don't necessarily believe the nearly worst in MLB offensive output is a true indication of overall talent level, unless both of Springer and Turner are completely cooked as productive hitters. The team constantly has several hitters simultaneously in deep slumps, and on top of that a manager that refuses to make the needed changes to mitigate the issues caused by the slumping players.

Bit of a mixed bag. I certainly enjoyed the 9 run offensive outbursts and was just as frustrated as everyone else at the rest of the games where the team can't score more than a run or two.

I think Barger offers a lot more upside and better toolset and if he's given a bit more rope and played in positions he's comfortable with he might be able to add another solid bat to the lineup. Lukes would almost certainly offer more with the bat than Springer has until this point though.

I'd like to see previous years bat speed results to see how precipitously it's been declining year over year. Maybe it's a case of George simply needing to adjust to making due with a little less swing speed than previous years but the complete lack of results this season is pretty alarming.

Even without the IL stint I'd still call up Barger to primarily man right field and make Springer a part time player until he can prove he's able to contribute anything offensively. Vogelbach could be sent packing to create a spot on the roster as his presence doesn't serve any purpose other than making the team even less likely to use Jansen out of the DH spot.

The team really had no one better than Manoah until Ryu came back from Tommy John surgery so they were unfortunately stuck with Alek at that point. The lack of pitching depth has been exposed the last few years, although I admittedly thought the depth looked decent enough both years it eventually proved to ultimately be inadequate a year ago with this year sort of remaining to be seen as Francis and Rodriguez are nearing return. I thought Alek looked far too close to the terrible version of himself yesterday as he was constantly spinning out of his delivery and the stuff was downright mediocre as well. I think the club essentially views Kiermaier as a 400 PA type of player vs everyday as he needs more frequent rest days, but fully agree bringing him back for a club that desperately needed to add thump to the lineup was a total headscratcher. Given the limits of available offseason budget it's perfectly fair to question whether the available dollars were wisely allocated. Ultimately the team can only sign the guys who are actually willing to take their money but the early results for the offense have the decision making looking rather suspect.

The team is largely getting in it's own way at times. Whether it's the stubborn refusal to move Springer down in the order, or cut Turner's playing time due to a month long slump, or dragging their feet on playing Schneider every day, or inserting Jansen into the DH spot more frequently. If the offensive situation weren't so dire these issues wouldn't be as big of a deal but on a team that has mostly struggled to plate runs for most of the season it's high time for more desperation.

I typically don't gripe too much about managerial decisions but the decision to start Turner over Jansen at DH despite him being 6 for his last 57 AB heading into the game and then hitting him second is beyond f***ing egregious. Over and over again Turner's spot in the lineup came up in big situations and he repeatedly failed over and over again to deliver.

Some of the runs were a result of bad luck but at the same time Alek looked an awful lot like the terrible 2023 version of himself.

There have been far too many games like this one so far this season. Oh well, gotta hope the lineup aside from Vlad and Bo accomplish something tomorrow.

I'm not aware of how to look up those particular splits. Baseball Reference does have a handy splits breakdown page where you can find a treasure trove of other stats however: https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.fcgi?id=kirkal01&year=2024&t=b

I don't recall reading any reports that stated Orelvis was anything better than below average at third base, but at the same time there weren't reports of him being an absolute butcher at the position either. Perhaps this could be a case of where the short throw at second base messed with his head or something although I haven't broken down the ratios of throwing errors to errors due to shoddy glovework.

I mentioned earlier in one of the threads that it's gone under the radar that Kirk has actually been a pretty solid offensive contributor for awhile now. He got off to an awful start at the plate but he's been steadily trending upwards with the bat. You can go back to as far as the second week of the season to illustrate this, as he's produced exactly league average offence 100 wRC+/0.8 FWAR in 21 games/77 PA since Apr 5. Fast forward to April 14 and he's provided a 137 wRC+ over the following 5-6 weeks with 0.7 FWAR in 14 games/50 PA. Jansen has deservedly received the bulk of the catching duties given his elite offensive contributions but Kirk has also been a very steady contributor as well after a really bad initial week to start the season.

Orelvis has been slumping hard in recent weeks so a callup would likely need to wait until he gets himself sorted at the plate first.

Yeah spending something like a quarter of the offseason budget on Kiermaier was a bit of a head scratcher given the fact that Varsho is at least as good defensively in center field, and having two elite left handed hitting center field defenders who need to be sheltered a bit against left handed pitching was redundant. I would have loved to see Teoscar signed last offseason in addition to primarily man left field and to cover right field in case of Springer injury but unfortunately that's not the direction the front office took. I still hope Kirk can prove he's a little better with the bat over a full season than he's shown recently as he's been a little streaky, but if he ends up being more of a great backup then that's not the worst thing in the world. It certainly increases the importance of a Jansen extension if the team intends to make an attempt to compete in upcoming seasons as Kirk hasn't shown the ability to provide any offense whatsoever when being the primary starter. I fully expected Springer to decline towards the tail end of his contract but certainly didn't expect the decline to be so sudden. Even last season saw a small 10 point decrease in xwOBA compared to actual wOBA drop of 32 points so a small resurgence seemed like a good possibility. At a glance it doesn't appear as though his athleticism should have completely fallen off a cliff given how well he's still running and defending, but the longer the prolonged slump goes on the greater likelihood the team will need to find someone else to split time with him in right field.

I'm fully guilty of feeling a little frisky after recent offensive performances but if you are accusing Brownie of the same you aren't paying attention. He's basically the balder male version of Wednesday Addams right now. If the doomsday cult is allowed to act like a baseball season is only 60 games long and declare the season to be over in May then I'm sure as s*** allowed to carry on like all of the offensive issues are fixed after a handful of good games. It's only fair after all to apply the same standards to everyone on here.

He's a tough one to figure out. His first two years with the club when he was still a beast with the bat he missed a ton of time due to injury. I couldn't help but think of what kind of value he could provide if he were to stay healthy, but then his numbers just took a nosedive and are even worse so far this season. He has good old man skills in pitch recognition and swing decisions but something just seems off with his swing as he's constantly hitting the ball on the ground.

That dude doesn't really have any haters around here but a certain segment of the posters still worship the ground he walks on.

Just a small typo, probably got autocorrected on my phone. You know who I mean smarty pants.

I'll fully admit that went completely over my head. Given the recent tenor of the board I'm not used to seeing jokes that require the offense to be good.

Kiermaier got off to an awful start but has quietly been really damn good with the bat over the 6 weeks or so and have numbers have been trending upwards. It's gone completely under the radar but Kirk's numbers are also much better over the same period of time. Each of them seems to be performing much better in part time roles, whether it's due to effective matchups, feeling fresher due to extra rest or some other reason.

I see very little possibility Green is going to be forced into a mopup role.