2024 Game Thread

[lou]

Which, why is Burger always at 3B and him at 1B? Makes the defense so much worse

I assume the answer is try to see if Burger can figure out 3B to pencil him there. But also seems silly to me to do it with someone so old whose entire career has been at said position.

But also makes me assume they do not view Bride as an option at 3rd next year at all.

It is great to see him get comfortable with major league pitching. Hopefully the power stays

'

I view it a little different. I hate it too with Burger on a practical level, but my expectation is they are trying the better assets (Edwards SS, Burger 3B) just to see what happens as quite frankly, everyone may think I am crazy in conveying info, but I ain't wrong on they don't have a SS, right handed 3B, and right handed CF short and long term. With the footnote being "maybe Bride" at 3B. I think they know defensively what they have with Bride. He just has to hit of course.

If lightning strikes and Edwards and Burger can do that, all of sudden it opens up a lot of options as 1B/DH is really paved for DDLS, Martorella, Berry, and sadly probably Ramirez for 80+ games as I am imagining he is the backup catcher for 60-70 games, and then 2B is cleared for probably Serna. And Otto is deceptively a little good here - expected slash .265/.297/.388, 97th percentile defender, 82nd percentile base runner. He has a 100 OPS split advantage in his career versus right handers, so he might turn into a (very) good starter vs RHP if he settles into say a .725 OPS right handed split with that defense and base running. For some ludicrous perspective, H. Kim who I want to give $100 million dollars of Bruce's money is an 87th percentile defender and 73rd percentile base runner (so Otto is better theoretically but Kim has a much larger sample size of course), but his expected slash is .246/.345/.354. Otto should be slugging more than Kim too! But that 50 point OBP advantage for Kim is absolutely screaming and why he is an awesome starter along with the defense. Kim is a 2.4 WAR player right now. Otto could be half of that quickly as a floor even with the lower OBP you know? That's a sneaky good little player. A "Rays" kinda guy. So yea, Edwards being able to handle SS would be incredible as Otto, Sanoja, Serna, Norby, Bride, and Pauley could definitely be penciled in awhile at 2B IMO. Others have mentioned, but 2B is real figured out for a long time.

So I don't think this is about Bride not being viewed defensively at 3B. I think it's shooting for the moon with Edwards at SS and Burger at 3B as each of them radically change the team needs for when the SP or cash is spent to get more bats. My gut is Bride is going to hit enough to stick for at least opening day. Expected slash .232/.338/.346, doesn't qualify but around 45th percentile defender and base runner. All I see there is the .338 projected OBP and for a guy that isn't hurting you on the field or paths with acceptable defense and base running, that's a cheap 2025 option to not dip into signing Moncada, J. Davis, Suarez, etc. With the rampage he is on right now and a stellar AAA record, I think there is some hope here he can adjust into a .250 avg hitter with a little more slugging, and all of a sudden you're in business for a productive bench player floor if he is hitting .250/.350/.380+. Since his recall (July 4), he is hitting .293/.402/.507 (.340 BABIP) in a 92 PA sample size, so you can see where I see there is real hope for batting .250 quickly with a BABIP adjustment, and I can't imagine he has turned into Jake Burger with the slugging so just dinging him down which would be fine. That OBP really really plays if he can live .338+. Peter did good identifying Bride and Otto as some potentially sneaky good moves.

BTW, Edwards expected slash .267/.346/.344, 7th percentile defense, doesn’t quality but I’ll say mid/high 70th percentile base runner. It's eye brow raising at seeing it's similar to Otto and Bride expected offense, but that .346 OBP and base running is going to play at 2B big time once that defense shoots up getting off SS. He probably might fall on that Arraez/Kwan spectrum of super contact hitters and he'll always overachieve on that slash because the name of the game is the dinks dropping and out running slow grounders constantly to pad those extra 10-20 hits on the season so he's just a beast at a .285-.290 hitter if he does that.

Anyways, my hope is Burger can play 3B against most left handers for years. I have a mild expectation that could happen as a 50+ game starter there, and try and align that with Pauley (or Bride) working out and Sanoja pitching in as a 3rd option. What a wonderful internal situation if that happens and then my war path really just becomes a SS and right handed CF and 3B is "fine." It's unlikely, but there is plausible hope at 3B. I have no hope for Edwards at SS but also don't care as he could be a real asset at 2B. Maybe they should be trying Otto at SS instead against right handers. That seems like a much better idea.

[fish16]

i'd play burger exclusively at 1b and see if he can become a solid glove there. idk what more you would expect to happen with his defense at 3b. he wont all of a sudden become a positive glove there. He has a floor of a really good DH, see if he can become a good defensive 1b and that gives you more flexibility with some of these other bats to play DH in the future if their gloves dont pan out.

Bride i dont see as really being lucky and expecting this huge cratering to a sub .700 OPS guy. His BABIP isnt high at .317. I think he's finally just getting a consistent opportunity for the first time in his career to play every day. if you look at his minor league career, this is kind of just the player he is. Good amount of walks, very few k's, with some pop. In his minor league career he has 321 k's and 267 bb's in 1867 PA's, over a .400 OBP, and a .458 Slugging. I think a lot of players can struggle to develop at the major league level just due to a lack of opportunity, and i think he fits the bill there. Let him play 3b every day for the rest of the year and if he keeps it up, pencil him in at starter going into spring.

I'd like to see Norby up here, and we do not need to see any more from Lopez or Rivera or Brujan. Have norby play everyday at 2b, burger every day at 1b, edwards at SS, bride at 3b, and that is interesting to watch at least for the next month and a half.

[fish16]

edwards has now played 40 games. just extrapolating his numbers over 160, he's at 76/84 SB's, 92 walks, 4 hr's, 24 2b's, and 4 3b's (so 32 xbh's) and 7.2 WAR per baseball reference.and 6.8 per fangraphs. That kind of production will play anywhere. whether he gets better at ss or eventually slides back to 2b, they have a long term piece there. why they didnt give him an opportunity last year is beyond me. it's not like this came out of nowhere this year. he had one of the most impressive AAA seasons ive ever seen last year.

it's remarkable how many guys come here and not only struggle, but pretty much completely end their career. Anderson has not been picked up. Segura spent a full year out of baseball and only recently signed a minor league deal with the orioles, no one has signed garcia, and wendle is also out of baseball now after just 36 at bats this year, gurriel i dont believe ever signed, though he was done before we got him\, and cueto is done as well. pretty impressive to be that incompetent that guys dont even get signed after being here for the most part.

[lou]

i'd play burger exclusively at 1b and see if he can become a solid glove there. idk what more you would expect to happen with his defense at 3b. he wont all of a sudden become a positive glove there. He has a floor of a really good DH, see if he can become a good defensive 1b and that gives you more flexibility with some of these other bats to play DH in the future if their gloves dont pan out.

Bride i dont see as really being lucky and expecting this huge cratering to a sub .700 OPS guy. His BABIP isnt high at .317. I think he's finally just getting a consistent opportunity for the first time in his career to play every day. if you look at his minor league career, this is kind of just the player he is. Good amount of walks, very few k's, with some pop. In his minor league career he has 321 k's and 267 bb's in 1867 PA's, over a .400 OBP, and a .458 Slugging. I think a lot of players can struggle to develop at the major league level just due to a lack of opportunity, and i think he fits the bill there. Let him play 3b every day for the rest of the year and if he keeps it up, pencil him in at starter going into spring.

I'd like to see Norby up here, and we do not need to see any more from Lopez or Rivera or Brujan. Have norby play everyday at 2b, burger every day at 1b, edwards at SS, bride at 3b, and that is interesting to watch at least for the next month and a half.

You're right about Burger in a vacuum, but to quib with an attempt at an actual baseball discussion, the issue is DDLS, Ramirez, and Martorella are coming very quickly next year. Now, of course one may get traded of the 4 of them and 1 or more might suck which alleviates playing time concerns, but these 4 guys are heralded to an extent and all might be limited to 1B/DH ultimately. It's a huge organizational development if Ramirez is going to hold up as a 50-60 game C, Martorella can dabble 40+ games in LF, and Burger can dabble 40+ games at 3B. I think DDLS may be a lost cause defensively with everything I've read but that's fine. He did come up as a 3B FWIW so maybe there is some fringe time hope there. Anyways, big picture, if things work with all of them which I do think they need to think about even if that might be unlikely, those guys need 450-500+ starts combined between the 4 of them and there are only 324 available at 1B/DH. So picking off games at C for Ramirez, LF for Martorella, and 3B for Burger really impacts some team building for Bendix if those guys can do it. You get it. In this "lost' season, I don't really mind Burger getting some 3B reps even if I have no expectations it works out. Same as Edwards. Let him play SS to hope, but it's just not gonna work out and he can move to 2B next year. I don't expect Burger (or Edwards) to ever become a good defensive 3B (or SS), but if they can somehow be a 33rd percentile defender (that may be optimistic, yes), we're in that zone where team position flexibility has radically improved. Practically, and assuming they all work out, they really need Ramirez to be able to handle 75+ games at catcher and Martorella 60+ games in LF more than likely which is likely the easier solution to this theoretical issue versus trying to plug Burger into 3B. And I note here, I'm completely ignoring Berry if he is turning a corner and if one thinks Martorella sucks, just swap in Berry there and can he play some LF? Berry is 218 PA, .309/.381/.454 (.355 BABIP) since May 25th when he really started turning a corner. 9% BB / 16% K. I'd like to see some EV notes on this as some of the scouts say weaker content which doesn't look great moving levels, but that slash and BB/K is now a larger sample size and Berry is hitting that ball right now in AA. I didn't realize this but Pipeline dropped both Martorella and Berry out of their top 30, which is wild - https://www.mlb.com/prospects/marlins. Fangraphs already ejected Berry too, but they still like Martorella as a top 10 prospect https://www.fangraphs.com/prospects/the-board?org=mia. Something is going to give here with this two. I'm not out on either of them and frankly, they control them for 3-4 years here so there is a lot of time. But if they do suck, full circle - this is a lot easier if Burger and DDLS are just the 1B/DH and Ramirez pitches in some off days for them. Everyone eats if just 3 of these guys make it.

Per Bride, he's definitely over achieving with extremely low EVs suggesting no slugging is coming longterm (https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savan...-r-hitting-mlb), but I agree that BB/K rate is real. He's never going to slug over .400 with a large sample size what he's showing right now, but he's fine if he is a .340+ OBP guy and isn't embarrassing in the field. I'd agree he should probably be playing 3B two-thirds the time, and Burger can play twice a week just to see if it's acceptable enough. If Bride hits .250 here on out, he starts getting penciled into the opening day roster quickly as at minimum a stopgap option to something better down the road. I'll be floored if they get "fine" players out of Bride and Pauley (and Sanoja) and have a real solid poor man's platoon at 3B. Maybe Norby pitches in there too.

And yea, as to Norby. No idea what they are doing. He's splitting 2B/3B like 50/50 right now. Like play him at 3B in AAA to work on that exclusively, or call him up to play 2B and get his feet wet for next year when there is some genuine hope with healthy SP and an influx of Ramirez, Norby, DDLS, Sanoja, and Stowers to help Burger, Sanchez, and Edwards. Not sure what they are doing here. I do think he will be up within 1-2 weeks FWIW. I just don't understand why he isn't playing 6 days a week at 3B if that's the plan. Rivera has gotta go.

[lou]

edwards has now played 40 games. just extrapolating his numbers over 160, he's at 76/84 SB's, 92 walks, 4 hr's, 24 2b's, and 4 3b's (so 32 xbh's) and 7.2 WAR per baseball reference.and 6.8 per fangraphs. That kind of production will play anywhere. whether he gets better at ss or eventually slides back to 2b, they have a long term piece there. why they didnt give him an opportunity last year is beyond me. it's not like this came out of nowhere this year. he had one of the most impressive AAA seasons ive ever seen last year.

it's remarkable how many guys come here and not only struggle, but pretty much completely end their career. Anderson has not been picked up. Segura spent a full year out of baseball and only recently signed a minor league deal with the orioles, no one has signed garcia, and wendle is also out of baseball now after just 36 at bats this year, gurriel i dont believe ever signed, though he was done before we got him\, and cueto is done as well. pretty impressive to be that incompetent that guys dont even get signed after being here for the most part.

We all like him, but he has a .430 BABIP this year and career .405 which is not that different. You can't really extrapolate his current production when there is no way he keeps those rates - he's on a DLC BABIP burner right now with similar low defense. As we know, that bottom drops off eventually as everything regresses to the mean. He's probably a .270-.290 hitter with an excellent walk rate, very good base runner (which DLC is not of course), and TBD defense but it's probably good at 2B (so I hope?). He's a starting piece if he's adequate at 2B if the OBP/base running holds, and a really positive one (3 WAR maybe) if he's a good or better defender at 2B. Kim is a complete dope for not calling him up. Also, thank you Kim for trading him for. Interestingly the guy they traded for Edwards is a really solid FV40+ SP prospect - https://www.fangraphs.com/players/sa...ats?position=P. I'll make that trade all day, but the Rays always eat and still pluck guys outside the 20-30 of team's lists in trades that turn into something. They are so good at this.

Yuli is kicking ass in AAA for the Braves BTW and I've seen a few notes they may be thinking of him as a pinch hitter (as they never play their subs with all those studs they have) for the playoffs - https://www.fangraphs.com/players/yu...ts?position=1B. May he be called up and watch a third pitch strike by Alex Vesia to end the Braves season.

[Nick]

I’ve actually been impressed with Edwards hands, throwing accuracy at shortstop. Has made very few errors. Obviously he doesn’t have the range or arm strength for shortstop but I don’t see how he wouldn’t be a good 2B.

[Nick]

Also, I think I’ve watched more games in August than I had in April-July combined.

[lou]

Also just to defend Martorella a little, he came out of a long slump on 7/9 (where he had 8 hits in 23 games, yikes!) and since then

107 PA, .266/.355/.468 (.290 BABIP), 5 HR, 12% BB / 19% K. (with 9 hits his last 6 games for some slump perspective).

Not amazing, but that's pretty good. His first 107 PA in SD were a .292/.393/.427 (15% BB / 16% K) so he's really been quite good 1/2 the year and abysmal the other half sandwiched in the midle. Have to judge it as a whole, but shit happens. Maybe the trade impacted him mentally.

I'm real interested in seeing how Berry and Martorella end here basically. Some pretty wild swings for both of them.

[Nick]

What Washington has done with Nasim Nunez this year is mind blowing to me. He’s been with them the entire season with them and has 22 ABs. Like they must think highly of him to basically waste a major league roster spot on him for the entire year. But on the other hand, doing this can’t be good for his development, right? I’ll be very interested to see how his career pans out after this.

[lou]

I’ve actually been impressed with Edwards hands, throwing accuracy at shortstop. Has made very few errors. Obviously he doesn’t have the range or arm strength for shortstop but I don’t see how he wouldn’t be a good 2B.

Yea, he'll probably be fine there. It's SSS, but FG UZR/FRV ratings are neutral at 2B, abysmal (-6 OAA) at SS which aligns with statcast, and also bad for the short time in CF in 2023. It's 2B.

Stott has an expected slash .260/.337/.382, 64th percentile defense, 55th percentile base running. Fangraphs is giving him a 1.3 WAR over 425 PA. This is a 1.8 WAR/600 PA season pace.

Edwards probably has a slight OBP potential advantage and notable base running advantage. Slugging doesn't mean too much (20 TB for a season) here as everything is low. So if his defense is similar at 2B as a floor, this scales quickly to a 2 WAR starter at 2B for Edwards. And that's based on 64th percentile defense and Edwards hitting .267/.346/.344 (.690 OPS). Tick up the defense if he is better than that and if he's a low .700s OPS kind of guy with that OBP ultimately, 3 WAR land. Either way, this is a piece for years it seems. Hopefully on the better end and he's closer to a .750 OPS than a .690 OPS and the defense lands.

[lou]

What Washington has done with Nasim Nunez this year is mind blowing to me. He’s been with them the entire season with them and has 22 ABs. Like they must think highly of him to basically waste a major league roster spot on him for the entire year. But on the other hand, doing this can’t be good for his development, right? I’ll be very interested to see how his career pans out after this.

Totally. I love them doing this for them to get a player, but sucks for Nasim. They can plop him 2 years in AAA after this season so I mean, he can catch up (sort of?). He's probably getting a lot of reps every SP throw day FWIW. It's a wild Rule V move to shelter him this much.

[nny]

So I don't think this is about Bride not being viewed defensively at 3B.

Just to clarify, I don’t mean that they don’t view Bride as a 3B defensively but rather they do not view him as a starter next year at all (and not that I necessarily disagree with it). At least that’s my take away on making the defense worse - if they viewed him as a starting option, he’d get more playing time at 2B*/3B where we actually need starters. It could also just be “we trust how his defense plays, we just need his bat in the lineup to see if it plays so plug him in wherever” but I doubt it with how bad the need is for starters at those positions

*Not saying it’s a position of need, with Edwards balling and multiple 2B prospects in AAA. But Edwards is our SS until he’s pushed off, and still need starters until a prospect properly claims the role - especially if they do keep Norby down until months in next year for service time reasons. Also don’t mean he should be there over Otto, I mean non-Otto days where they have Brujan at 2B and Bride at 1B/DH

Burger has been a 3B since college. About the only argument I can see for him magically getting better at this point in his career is now he has more consistent coaching at the major league level aka better coaching…but if going that route, than Norby should be up for that lol.

I’d much rather see him getting reps at 1B where he doesn’t have much experience and could actually gain growth. I definitely understand the 1B/DH potential logjam, but if he’s trying to work a second position I’d rather see Burger getting reps in LF than 3B at this point - possibly just talking out my ass but he’s got decent speed and arm, I don’t see tools lacking it would just be a matter of learning the position/new reads on the ball. Which then gives flexibility to move guys around the field to get them in the line up/off days using the DH

[rmc523]

Don’t forget, Bruce will have to pay Stanton’s 3/$30M deal from ‘26-‘28.

[lou]

Don’t forget, Bruce will have to pay Stanton’s 3/$30M deal from ‘26-‘28.

Yes. And that's in my budgets.... and Garcia.... and Go for next year

[lou]

Orioles manipulating service time for Coby Mayo during a playoff run - https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2024/...coby-mayo.html


The interesting note is this move preserves rookie eligibility so Coby could get them a draft pick if he's awesome in 2025.

So now Norby. Didn't think about this aspect as I'm only caring about year 7 and super 2 status. He was up 12 days, and has to be under 45 days.... So he can be up 32 days to preserve rookie eligibility and if he's great next year, Marlins could get a pick. He might hit and get huge quantity stats with clear playing time. There is not a -0- chance here Norby is a top 1-2 rookie if he gets 550 PA next year. This might be what is happening, along with some 3B development time. Basically, August 29th give or take a day is where this lands where Norby can get his feet wet and save rookie eligibility. This is probably what is happening just in case Norby is a quick .270/.350/.450 guy.

Good note MLBTR.