MLB 2018 regular season thread

Again, they haven't. They are not definitive about his entire career, but they show that the scouts were off base.

Of course, you are more than happy to defend the "verdict" of scouts based on 14 spring training at-bats. I guess you forgot your issue with small sample sizes then.

 

They didn't project what he would do at the start of the season, but rather for the entire season.

Davidson was clearly ready for the start of the season.

 

Yeah, yeah. That's the Bloom opinion, which is iffier.

But the consensus here is that the scouts quoted in Passan's column have been "proven . . . spectacularly wrong."

Has Baseball Prospectus been "proven ... spectacularly wrong" about Matt Davidson?

 

Sean Doolittle too, though he was a first baseman/outfielder. He hit well all the way through the minors (including an .854 OPS at Double-A in 2008), but he had knee problems and the Athletics thought he'd be more valuable as a pitcher.

The two-way thing is going to become a trend as teams want/need more relievers on their rosters, I believe. Brendan McKay was the No. 4 pick out of Louisville by the Rays last year and has been a two-way guy in the minors (pitcher/first base).

The Braves have a couple of minor-league pitchers — Joey Wentz and Kyle Muller — who were also great hitters in high school. But because the NL does not have the DH (and because pitchers don't bat until Double-A), they have thus far not utilized them as hitters.

 

And last year’s No 1 pick Hunter Greene excelled at both pitching and hitting in high school. I read the Reds will just have him pitch this year.

 

That's not really rare, especially in HS. About 10 years ago during a stretch of spectacularly bad drafting, the Pirates took the NCAA DI home run leader for the season with a top 5 pick and had him pitch exclusively. Didn't work out well for them.

Matt Bush is another hitter turned pitcher. Tim Wakefield.

 

He definitely stuck his foot out, it was not a natural part of his slide. I missed the 3rd base thing. Who did that?

 

They've been proven spectacularly wrong about Ohtani not being ready for the start of the season.

Maybe he won't be ready for the middle or end of the season. But definitely ready for the start.

 

I think you'll see more of this two-way possibility because of the elite travel system. Teams don't like to bring more than 12-13 guys to a tournament because they don't want parents bitching about playing time. So you don't have a lot of guys who are only pitchers anymore. Everyone has one or two other positions, and everyone hits. And they're doing it against the best competition from around the nation, not just the best guys from the high schools in their area.

 

They didn't say that. That Bloom guy said that.

 

Ohtani was called out on a pick off throw late in the game at first base. Replay overturned it. He got picked off again in the same at bat.

 

He wasn't ready.