Quote:
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut
I'd have said Machado until he showed that he's not a shortstop. He's been somewhere between 'bad' and 'historically awful' at short this season, depending on your metric of choice.
Defensive metrics aren't all that fantastic but they can at least put you in the general vicinity and Machado's general vicinity is that of a really shitty shortstop.
So if I could get a RH third baseman with 35-40 HR skills and and good but not great plate discipline or a LH outfielder with 40-45 HR skills and elite plate discipline (provided that this year's the one-off), I'd take the latter. We need LH power more and while we have better OF options in the system than we do 3b prospects, I think Gorman will prove himself to be a big time keeper long-term and that's really the timeline you need to be looking at with a signing of this magnitude.
With Harper your ceiling is substantially higher, IMO. There's arguably more risk there, but his natural ability is off the charts. And frankly, this team needs a guy with his fire in the worst way. That guy plays like each play could be his last; he's just a damn treat to watch play if you can forget the fact that he came into the league as a teenager. Since his indiscretions at a young age, his only real problems have been with 2 guys - Matt Williams and Jonathan Papelbon. Both of those guys are monumental assholes.
But again - it's not relevant. Neither guy will be here. I just hope neither of them ends up in CHC.
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I would obviously take either, but preferentially I'd be a Machado guy. For some reason, I don't know why.
I think it's that I could actually see some magical small ass chance he could come here, whereas Harper wouldn't ever.