Yeah, but that doesn't tell you anything. Bregman's shown that he has a lot of pride and love of the game and has channeled that into really doing some phenomenal work on improving his eye and thus his plate appearances. His attitude has driven him to amazing results. It's too early to say anything about Tucker's attitude, work ethic or whatever, and how that will affect his game. My initial impression just watching him, though, does not yell "pride" or "excitement to be here" to me. But who knows? I don't. I'd rather find out sooner rather than later what this kid is or isn't made of, though.
I blame the A’s. If the division race didn’t go down to the wire, we might’ve had a better idea of Kyle Tucker. That race could have huge ramifications going forward. It might’ve been the difference between having Realmuto here or Tucker. I’m glad they kept Tucker.
Still way too early to judge Tucker's floor or ceiling. I get it that he has that nonchalant aura working against him since he has had little MLB success. Players that are quite can be very successful. He just needs raise his game to the MLB level. He stated that the big leagues took him by surprise at the level of day to day prep. Lunhow said he was very confident that Tucker is going to mature because of the experience last season. It is unfair to except a 22 year to push his way into THIS lineup, I'm not saying it can't happen but Bregman is going to turn out to be one of the greatest Astros of all time once he is done. Bregman is just that crazy about baseball and talented. Let Tucker be Tucker.
They (seemingly) have uncertainty around three positions: first base, left field, DH. If Tucker smashes in the spring, why wouldn't they have him in LF on Opening Day? Brantley is obviously in the line-up *somewhere* - but I'm not sure they would make the same accommodation for Gurriel and/or White.
I don't understand the shade everyone wants to throw on Gurriel. He's a solid hitter and his overall post season numbers are better than his regular season numbers even though he's had a couple bad series. Also, his injury last year is known to drain a hitter's power for that season. I expect him to hit nearly 20 HRs, have a .280 or better average, and drive in 80-100 RBIs. He's not Goldschmidt but he's good enough to hit 6th or 7th in our line up.
I agree, everyone was clamoring for an upgrade at 1st. I like Gurriel, and he doesn't strike out a lot, he is a great contact hitter, if some of those hits start missing the fielders he'll be fine.
His low on-base percentages drag down his productivity. At best he's an average 1B but given aging curves it wouldn't be surprising for him to be below average again. Tyler White has him in age and ceiling.
Yet his OBP was the same as Marwin and Correa last year and better than Reddick, Stassi, Marisnick, McCann, and Gattis. Like I said, he's good enough to hit towards the bottom third of our lineup. He was also 2nd in RBIs to Bregman and that's with missing the beginning of the year with his suspension/injury.
Can't look at Yuli's offensive output without factoring defensive value. He's a minus 1B and is even worse at 3B/2B. He maybe a ~110 WRC+ hitter but combined with his defensive output he's gonna be a net average or negative. Count me as one of the new-school people who discount the value of RBI's. They're more a circumstance of opportunity (who you're hitting behind and in front of) than a particular skill.
I use to agree on discounting RBI's more... until I watched day after day last season when a guy on 3rd with less than 2 outs didn't score on this team because so many guys were striking out (Marisnick, Fisher, Gattis, JD Davis, Correa, Marwin etc). I like that Gurriel at least puts the ball in play most of the time.
Anyone wanna take a stab? I'm guessing top offers made (and that are still on the board) are: Harper: 6y 185m Machado: 6y 200m Keuchel: 2y 35m with 3rd year team option Kimbrel: 2y 25m with 3rd year team option (I think teams are a bit scared after his 2018 playoffs) Moustakas: 3y 15m Marwin: 3y 10m Gio Gonzalez: 2y 11m Adam Jones: 2y vet min Josh Harrison: 2y 6m
There has to be some metric to track this - for example, what % of runners get driven in, accounting for a runner-on-3rd-no-out is easier than runner-on-1st-two-out, etc. I suspect if measured in detail, there are certain players that are legitimately better at it than others, but I'm not sure and I'm not sure if it would be the people we think of.
Good with your first 2 and Adam Jones Keuchel: 3/45 Moustakas: 3/25 Marwin: 3/25 Gio: 1/7 + team option Harrison: vet min
Fangraphs has a Clutch stat. Yuli was considered great in 2017 and below average but within normal limits in 2016 and 2018. By comparison, Breggy was between great and excellent in clutch situations in 2018.
Harper: 9y 288m with a higher salary the 1st two seasons and a buyout after year 2 Machado: 7y 213m also with higher salary and a buyout after 2 seasons Keuchel: 3y 51m plus incentives with 4th year team option Kimbrel: 3y 51m Moustakas: 2y 16m Marwin: 3y 22m Gio Gonzalez: 1y 6.5m Adam Jones: 1y 4m Josh Harrison: 1y 3m
Harper $330M/9yr Machado $225M/7yr Keuchel $55M/3yr Kimbrel $33M/2yr Moustakas $18M/2yr Marwin $16M/2yr Gio $6M/1yr Nobody else is getting meaningful money.
You think Harper has $330 million on board and still hasn’t signed? That would certainly mean the entire baseball world is totally wrong about everything going on right now I don’t think he has anywhere near that offered right now, nowhere in the vicinity
