Here’s the latest from the game’s eastern divisions:
- The Marlins are interested in Cuban second baseman Hector Olivera, reports Clark Spencer of the Miami Herald. Olivera recently defected with hopes of becoming an MLB free agent, and Miami is certainly one of several clubs that looks in need of an acquisition up the middle.
- Giancarlo Stanton’s season-ending injury does not change the Marlins’ plans to make a push at extending him this winter, the Associated Press reports (via the New York Times). “There’s no hesitancy, no reservation or doubt he’ll return and be even better,” said Miami president of baseball operations Michael Hill. “We’re going to do everything in our power to keep him a fixture in our lineup for many years to come.”
- The Red Sox are not giving up on Will Middlebrooks in spite of building frustration, but president Larry Lucchino did make clear that the team is “looking for a left-handed hitting third baseman,” as he told WEEI’s Dennis & Callahan (via WEEI.com’s Andrew Battifarano). Though Lucchino said that prospect Garin Cecchini could be that player, he also emphasized that the team will not “make the same mistake that [we] made this year, which is to assume that so many of our young players are ready for prime time.”
- Two long-time Blue Jays — reliever Casey Janssen and DH Adam Lind — are approaching the possibility of finding new homes, as Shi Davidi of Sportsnet.ca writes. Janssen, a free agent, says he does not yet know whether Toronto will make him a competitive offer. If not, he says, he will “embrace a new city and try to bring a championship to wherever that next stop is.” Lind, on the other hand, is subject to a $7.5MM club option. Though expectations are that it will be exercised, Lind says he hopes the front office will give him a clear sense of its intentions before the season ends.
Please dont bring Lind back lol
Just curious…as someone who rarely watches Boston, what seems to be the problem with Middlebrooks? Looking at the numbers, the only thing that jumps out at me is that he swings at far fewer pitches than he used to. Despite this, his K rate has jumped. I’d be interested in the observations of some informed Boston fans who have watched him on a regular basis.
Some players seem to never get borderline strikes in their favor. Middlebrooks sounds like one of those players.
that and he’s susceptible to breaking pitches on the lower outside corner. Nagging injuries over the last 3 years as well.
More likely that he isn’t able to defend certain pitches on certain parts of the plate.
Probably, his fangraph heatmaps seem to indicate he loves to swing on a pitch inside even if it’s a ball.
Will Middlebrooks is bad at knowing which pitches to swing at and where to swing when he decides to. Also known as, he’s bad at batting.
Ok, but why? His first two years, he swung at the right pitches on par with the MLB average. In 2014, he’s making more contact on pitches in the zone than ever before, but FAR less contact on pitches out of the zone than ever before…and he’s swinging at far fewer pitches overall than he did in 2012-13, yet he’s seeing pretty much the same types of pitches now as he did in those years.
That is super false. Check his swing-and-miss rates for his first couple seasons, in combination with the percentage of balls he swung at.
Actually, it’s not super false. His first two years, he swung at almost the same number of pitches in the zone as league average. His contact rate in the zone was below league average, but only by a few percentage points, and this year it’s way up. His swinging strike rate has always been right around 1% higher than league average. The biggest differences, occurring this year for the first time, are that he is suddenly swinging at far fewer pitches overall and there’s been a drastic drop in his contact rate on pitches OUTSIDE the zone. So he’s actually gotten better at hitting strikes and worse at hitting pitches he should lay off. I would argue that if he can just learn a little patience – or even go back to his previous outside the zone contact rate – then Middlebrooks could make a nice stride forward next season.
He sure got a lot of prospect love coming up.
Panda to the Red Sox. 5/100M
Would be a good fit, but the pitching needs to be solved first.
I don’t know much about Sandoval. The Sox seem to be interested.
I personally like the Cecchini kid –I have seen him at AA and during this Sept. call-up and he hits the ball well. He also plays a little 1 B and LF.
Will is a puzzle–he takes a lot of called 3rd strikes similar to Bradley,Jr. The pitches may be just a little outside or inside and they give up on them.
Both WMB and JBJ insist on trying to pull the ball resulting in infield grousers or nothing flys to the OF.
Both could benefit from Winter Ball–both have options and will be fixtures at AAA next season.