Quote:
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut
No, Choate's a shit reliever.
This is like calling Matt Cassel a game manager and then trying to equate him with Alex Smith.
Randy Choate is garbage who can't even get lefties out, let alone be asked to face a single righty. His existence on this roster is doing a lot to create the 13 man bullpen that's crippling our bench. He's not a niche reliever, he's just a piece of crap with a long-term contract.
Maness, OTOH, can be used 70+ time/season and to great effect. He's not an elite reliever like Davis but as a guy that can give you 70 high quality innings at the back of your bullpen, he's a damn nice piece to have.
But as a guy that's going to be putting balls in play, I've never agreed with how the Cardinals use him. Sure, if you have a man on 1st and one out, bring him in. But if there's 2 outs, don't bother and if there's not a DP in order (or a key run at 2b) don't bring him in. Live by BABIP, die by BABIP.
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Look, I despise Choate, but you're talking out of both sides of your mouth here. Last week your argument was that Maness was a highly undervalued commodity because of opponents' ISO against him.
Well, last year Choate held lefties to .091/.205/.147, good for a .056 ISO. The year before, his ISO was .053 and lefties hit .171/.268/.264 against him.
The truth is, he's really, really good at getting lefties out if you look at advanced metrics. Now, I think that he'll walk the bases loaded if you just put the bat on your shoulder, but you can't speak of how one is significantly underrated and use his ISO to indicate the weak contact he induces while the other guy you bash is actually much better at his role.