Here’s the latest from the NL West…
- Service time considerations could play a role in the Padres’ Opening Day roster decisions on Luis Perdomo and Manuel Margot on the Opening Day roster, Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union-Tribune writes. Perdomo, a Rule 5 Draft pick last offseason, clocked a full year of MLB service time in 2016, posting a 5.71 ERA, 6.4 K/9, 2.28 K/BB rate and a whopping 59% grounder rate over 146 2/3 innings. Margot, one of the game’s top prospects, had a 12-day cup of coffee in the bigs last season. Keeping both Perdomo and Margot in the minors for a few weeks to begin 2017 would allow the Padres to gain an extra year of control over both players. In Margot’s case, the extra minor league seasoning could be necessary since Margot has missed the last two weeks of camp with a knee injury.
- Jimmy Rollins is off to a slow start in the Giants’ camp, with just three hits in his first 26 at-bats for an ungainly .113 average. Despite the lack of production thus far, the veteran infielder tells Andrew Baggarly of the Bay Area News Group that he isn’t yet feeling a crunch to perform given his non-roster status. “I’d love to start driving some balls. But pressure? No, it’s not pressure. You start doing that, then you’re really starting to go the wrong way,” Rollins said. As Baggarly notes, Rollins’ performance is somewhat difficult to evaluate since he appeared in only 41 games last season and none after June 8, so “the Giants must determine whether Rollins’ lack of results is due to diminished skills or whether he’s a veteran who needs a little extra time to regain his stroke.” Rollins gave no hints as to how he would proceed in his career if he didn’t make the Opening Day roster.
- Andre Ethier will undergo an MRI on his back on Monday, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told reporters (including Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register). Ethier has been bothered by lower back stiffness over the last two weeks and, since this is an unfamiliar injury for the veteran outfielder, Roberts said the club will “take it slow” in giving Ethier time to recover. Ethier played just 16 games last season due to a broken leg, and he is entering his last guaranteed year under contract with L.A. He needs at least 550 plate appearances for his $17.5MM option to vest for 2018, and while that much playing time may have been questionable anyway given the crowded Dodgers outfield, a significant back injury would certainly put it out of reach.
Why don’t they just keep Renfroe down to gain and extra year on him as well? With the experiment of Spangenberg in left the Pads could hypothetically start the year off with Blash in right, Jankowski in Center and Spangenberg in left. Bethancourt could play a little more outfield to start the year and it might open the door for Cordoba to make the team to be a super utility guy.
It’s much more important to protect the age 28 season of a multi-dimensional player than the age 31 season of a guy who’s likely to be pretty one-dimensional by that point.
Renfroe will be 31 in 2022, the last year of Padres team control. Keeping him in the minors for a month to retain team control for his age 32 season doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. You want to keep younger players, 22 and younger, in the minors that extra time because then you are getting another season of team control while they are still in their prime years which for position players is 25-29 years old. No sense in playing service time games to have one more season of a player that will be 2-3 years past their prime.
Only way bethancourt is playing The OF this year is if the Padres carry three catchers, and I don’t see them having the roster space for that since they’re probably carrying 8 relievers. No team wants both its catchers in the lineup at the same time.
Don’t forget Renfroe! They also need to send him down to protect his service time.
Man, Rollins fell off fast, it seems.
Pretty much all players do from their age 30 season on. There have been some exceptions, but they are few and far between.
Jimmy peaked in his age 28 season and has been in a steady decline since then.
Just for facts sake
2000-2006 (pre 28) – 95 OPS+
2008-2014 (post 28) – 95 OPS+
He fell off a cliff at 36 (as most players historically have done) but he consistently sat in that ~90 OPS+ range with occasional bumps for 15 years (including posting as many 100 OPS+ seasons in his 30s as he had pre-28)
Interesting to hear how Rollins responds to pressure. Some players thrive, others accept it..but to pretty much say acknowledging pressure will be detrimental? Interesting. Doesn’t inspire much confidence.
I get what he means. The ballplayers call it pressing, and pressing often leads to worse results not better.
He’s now pushing 40 and has put up a HOF discussion level career already with some impressive accomplishments (including the amazing 20/20/20/20/GG year)
I think it is safe to say his approach has worked out fine for him
Hof?
Discussion (meaning not dismissed outright without some consideration)
Don’t expect him to make it because the overall numbers aren’t there, but we are talking about SS here and there is an interesting case that can be presented
espn.com/blog/jayson-stark/post/_/id/819/jimmy-rol…
He’s borderline HOF honestly. There are a bunch of HOF shortstops worse than Rollins. But I’m a small hall guy and hope he doesn’t make it.
If Rollins is a HOFer we’re going to have a slippery slope problem and pretty soon Orlando Cabrera is going to get in and Julio Lugo will juuuust miss it.
As the article I linked outlines:
2000+ Hits (currently 2455)
200+ HR (231)
800+ XBH (857; the 231 HR, 511 2B and 115 3B)
400+ SB (470)
4 GG
MVP Award (one of only four 20/20/20/20 seasons ever -only 7 guys have ever even done 20 2B/20 3B/20 HR- and he added a GG on to boot)
He is the only shortstop in history to do all that
So while I don’t think he will probably get in, there is a case because Rollins isn’t just some guy who played well for a long time. He put up a truly special career for a SS
The slippery slope happened a long time ago. Look up rabbit maranville. Jim bottomley. Jim Rice. Chuck Klein. Frank Chance. Rollins would be far from the worst player in the Hall, or even the worst SS in the Hall.
How about Rizzuto ?
At this point, it wouldn’t be very smart to not keep Margot down. He needs to recover from his injury and then get some at-bats in extended spring training to shake the rust off before he joins the team.