Jose Abreu

Tim with such a good defensive play. I don’t know if any SS not named Simmons or Lindor can make the play he just made.

Abreu

Right on cue, here's Tom to derail a civil, productive discussion, all the while being guilty of the very thing he's accusing me of doing. It's shameless trolling at this point, and it's quite unfortunate that one poster has singlehandedly lowered the bar for quality of discourse throughout the entire site.

Loaded was probably the wrong word, my bad- and yes, I am extrapolating the current number to a full season. As of now he's at a 1.8 bWAR at 100 games so a full season would place him at about 2.9 bWAR. I wouldn't call it unimpressive- underwhelming, maybe? But then again, chances are that he'll improve as he matures.

And for what it's worth, I know that WAR is a flawed stat and I try my best not to overuse it. But it happens to be one of the advanced stats that shows Moncada in a more positive light. While the strikeouts and errors are frustrating, he has still been a net positive for the team this year, and it's nice to see a statistic reflect that. His range, specifically, is really overlooked at times. UZR hates him, DRS is lukewarm on him, but the range stats love him.

If you want to read a lot, here is a link that explains it in-depth. I personally prefer Baseball-Reference WAR for position players to Fangraphs WAR for position players. In a nutshell, I would assume that a lot of it offensively is coming from the combination of walks, home runs, and baserunning value. Defensively, his range is among the top second basemen in the league, and it makes up for a lot of the errors he has made on easier plays.

I'd consider a 2-3 WAR season from a 23 year old second baseman pretty solid.

1915 called, it wants its statistics back

Moncada has looked really good from the right side over the past month or so. (incoming 6 confused faces)

But when Anderson plays like that, he's disrespecting the American game! There is no middle ground apparently

Minaya is so awful at holding runners

Haha, it was weak contact at least. His peripherals are almost elite

He had one blown save but is fine otherwise

That was predictable

Now we all know what happens next. Ricky sends him out for the 8th, he allows a walk and a single and leaves, then the reliever allows a homer and Giolito's line goes from 7 IP, 0 R to 7 IP, 2 R

Yeah, great command, swinging strikes, you name it

Abreu of all people with a defensive clinic today

Yeah, I'm one of his biggest supporters on here but it seems like all the progress he has made throughout the season in terms of his approach comes and goes. This won't be a good series for him, especially with a bunch of hard throwing, strikeout-happy relievers

Gotta protect there, Yoan

Hard for me to hold back from a check the boxes joke, but getting awfully close to the ".400 batting average" box

Anderson has been getting some pretty good swings on the ball lately but not much luck

I guess they're not doing anything nearly as revolutionary as Tampa, but it was a pretty big deal that they hired Gabe Kapler (very pro-advanced stats) as their manager and it seems as though he's using interesting lineup constructions and new ideas on when to pull his starters/deploy relievers

Every time I start to become more ok with the idea of Eloy not getting promoted in the coming days, he starts getting his average closer to .400

Also, Giolito looks good.

I love what the Rays and Phillies are doing this year with their acceptance of advanced metrics. Not surprised that the Rays, with a pretty bad roster, are seeing more wins than expected.