Quote:
Originally Posted by VAChief
Yes, that was brutal to watch as well.
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That was a weird year, though.
Remember, McGwire was hurt to start the year and in July he was doing standard McGwire stuff - lots of HRs and walks. He looked like he was rounding into shape and had found a way to play with the foot as a new normal. McGwire had come up huge when David Wells broke Drew's hand and with Drew coming back at the beginning of August and a need for pitching, the Lankford/Williams trade got made. And with the available information, that deal made all the sense in the world (and Williams was huge for us).
LaRussa had benched McGwire in 2000 when he had Clark. In September and the post-season, McGwire was a pinch hitter because Clark was a better option.
But in August and September of 2001 - who was your better option? Bonilla, Robinson and Paquette were your only answers, right? Pujols had essentially moved full-time to the OF after Polanco had seized 3b.
I mean I guess there's an argument in favor of those guys. Pujols could've gone to 1b and Robinson could've taken over in LF. Your defense is improve that way (and LaRussa, to his credit, did a fair amount of late-inning defensive substitutions to that effect). Paquette would've been over-exposed in a heartbeat, IMO (he had fewer than 300 major league ABs after that season before being out of baseball altogether). Bonilla just sucked.
The major difference is that the 2001 squad didn't have the depth that this one has. It didn't have a clearly better plan B. And with LaRussa/McGwire you can point to an instance the year prior of him being willing to bench Mac when he thought he had a viable alternative. You can't do that with Matheny.
I guess Matheny has a similar argument on his IF right now. I personally would let Wong fight through it and find his form while taking the defensive improvement but the argument is similar to what could've been made for McGwire over Kerry Robinson. And as for Fowler, Matheny can point to Dexter's slow start last year as justification for letting him find his swing this year. Fowler really was critically important to our offense last season when he got it going.
I do think a DL stint for Fowler and Carpenter should be in order, though. I just can't agree with "keep doing what you're doing" with these guys. They're fighting it something awful and if you can't get a change in approach at the plate, perhaps a DL stint gets them out of their own heads.