Quote:
Originally Posted by Rams Fan
The ability to not be only restricted to DH at age 24 and be able to actually play 1st at a passable level moving forward. I'm also not sold on a guy being ready for major league pitching with how he's struggled (granted, it's spring training).
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But that's the thing - sending him back to AAA isn't going to help there. That's why I cited Carlson.
Sending Carlson back to AAA wouldn't have ultimately helped him last year. He NEEDED to see these guys who were pitching him backwards or who would throw breaking balls in fastball counts.
I've NEVER seen a rookie get pitched like Carlson got pitched coming up. I talked about it several times on here - that guy would get 3-2 breaking balls. He'd get first pitch changeups with RISP. He got his ass tossed into the deep end of the pool and it was the ONLY thing that was going to help him.
And who says he can't play passable 1b? Moreover, why does it even matter? We're stuck with the aging 1b with the most fungible skill-set on the planet at 1b for the foreseeable future.
Additionally, he played 3b and LF last year in the minors while playing mostly 1b. And WTF can Albert Pujols play? Not a thing - that's the guy that's knocking him off the roster. A guy who can't play anywhere defensively and can't score from 2nd on a single if his life depended on it.
Pujols is NOT a better player than Yepez right now. He doesn't do one single
thing better than Yepez right now. If you put Pujols in AAA he wouldn't manage a .970 OPS w/ nearly as many walks as strikeouts. And as for Yepez's 'struggles' - dude has .230 BABIP and 5 walks to only 3 strikeouts. He's right there. He's taking good ABs.
That's a guy that needs MORE time on the field against big league pitching, not less.
He's also 24 yrs old in his 7th season as a professional. You don't need to worry about the 40 (he's already on it) or options (he'll make it or not well before his 3 option years are burned off). This isn't some 19 yr old kid who had a big year fueled by a good BABIP despite a poor approach. He did EVERYTHING you can ask for of a young hitter and he did it at the age where he's ready to advance.
This isn't a move a serious organization makes.