Jones and role-playing
Hi all.
There’s been a lot made of what the team intends to do with Adam Jones, who is awesome, and whether they’re going to play him all the time, some of the time, never, or what. McLaren’s made some comments, and whatever.
Here’s the thing: what McLaren, or Bavasi, or anyone, says about the team’s plan should be discarded immediately. The only thing we should pay attention to in the next few weeks is when Jones actually plays, and how he does.
We know a couple of contradictory things: McLaren’s been spouting about how little he intends to use Jones. But despite McLaren’s comments, they didn’t call Jones up to play him once a week, or use him as a defensive replacement to carry the destroyed legs of Ibanez/Guillen. McLaren’s clearly also trying to manage the veterans, who haven’t been hitting or fielding, as best he can, which would prevent him from exposing plans to fit a full-time player in the roster. And yet the team’s trying to get into the playoffs for the first time after years of entirely unsatisfying play, and if Jones is playing well and clearly helping them at that, they’ll play him even if the plan really was to have him play twice a week, which it isn’t.
We’ll see. Jones did well last night, so they’ll probably throw him another start as soon as they can figure out a pretext to do so (rest someone on Sunday, say) and then if he’s still on fire, they’ll throw him playing time in Baltimore. His path is obviously made clearer if he’s tearing it up, and then McLaren will go in front of reporters and say “What can I do, the kid’s made a spot for himself, everyone likes winning,” and shrug.
You don’t have to have faith or lack faith in the front office at this point. Complaining about playing time they haven’t had a chance to not allocate to him yet isn’t useful. Let’s wait and see how this plays out, and we can dissect the statements later.
What are the conditions that trigger the beginning of Adam Jones 5 year pre-free agent period and how are those years counted up? The reason I ask (other than that googling didn’t give me an answer) is that I wonder at what point having Jones sitting on the bench for internal team political reasons starts to burn up those extremely valuable 5 years. Or has the 5 years already started with last year’s September call up?
I wish McLaren had brought in Broussard after Sexson’s first AB last night, mostly because Richie was -clearly- shaken by the fans booing him and he had absolutely no confidence at the plate because of it. There was just no way you could’ve expected him to contribute anymore that night, and he didn’t. He let meat pitches just go right on by and whiffed at terrible ones, and not just missing by a little bit either. Several times he missed by like 3 feet! That should not happen in the major leagues. I don’t care who’s pitching, nobody is that deceptive in their placement.
Richie needs to sit for the rest of the homestand, that’s for sure. And if he continues playing this poorly in Baltimore, he needs to be sent down to Tacoma to work this out with the pressure off of him.
44 – a $14 million a year minor leaguer?!? :O could break a record.
I totally agree that we need to wait and see with AJ’s playing time.
If anything, Ibanez in Right and Broussard at First, not Broussard in Right and Vidro at First…
When making changes to a team/lineup, in order to improve your chances, the best place to start is figuring out what the largest single improvement you can get at one position is. Vidro at 2nd isn’t an improvement. A reason not mentioned is when you talk about Yuni’s (not so recent) and Lopez’ struggles, it’s about a young player still adjusting to MLB and they’re being payed as if that’s the case. Sexson’s money isn’t a factor in it unless he can be traded. But the largest improvement that I can see the team making would be playing Broussard at 1B against RHP. I think it’s to that point that Sexson should be sent down for a bit, maybe while a run of RHP
Vidro at second doesn’t make as much sense as putting a good bat at 1B. If Sexson and Broussard were both to be gone after this year, would you think of moving Clement or Wlad to 1B? I really like the idea of having 2-4 people on the team capable of stealing 10+ bases and Hitting 10+ HR. I’d put Ichiro, AJ, Kenji and Wlad on that list. More speed is good, but maybe I’m trying too hard to fit Wlad onto the ‘imaginary’ roster for next season. It’s been said quite a bit that there’s just no spot for him on this team. Clement is probably better off staying behind the plate unless he plateu’s defensively, so what do you think the chances/worth are of moving Wlad to 1B. He’s got a corner bat with speed and won’t forget how to play the OF corners just by picking up 1B. Additionally do you see either Wlad or Clement as a good possible for DH going into next year?
I don’t expect Wlad to be a 40-40 guy or anything, but I was glad he was still here after the deadline…
Oops, forgot to finish researching the RHP run that includes the next four opponent starters before a TBD for the Orioles on Thurs(Probably LH Burres, who’s pitching today.) I’d say it’s a good time to send Richie down…
Hmmmmm …. Jones and role-playing made me think:
Morse (GM): “Roll d20 to see if you catch the ball”
Jones: Rolls .. “Sweet, I caught it”
Ibanez: “Wow, even with that roll, I wouldn’t have caught it. At least I can hit the ball!”
Jones: “What?! No you can’t! Your character sucks.”
Ibanez: Sighs.
WFB: “Is it my roll yet, is it my roll yet, is it my roll yet”
You can’t send Richie or Raul to the minor leagues. Quit suggesting it, it’s impossible.