I'm going to go ahead and assume it has something to do with the fact that he was pretty bad in August. Actually, he's gotten consistently worse every month this year, with the exception of maybe july when his slugging was through the roof: By month: (Avg/obp/slg/ops) May: .429/.429/.571/1.000 (7 Plate Apperances) June: .304/.340/.522/.861 (53 PA) July: .300/.339/.660/.999 (56 PA) Aug: .246/.315/.431/.746 (73 PA) Sept: .200/.200/.300/.500 (Only 10 PA so far) It's pretty clear by watching him that he has absolutely no clue how to hit a slider. He can mash fastballs but until he learns how to hit breaking pitches he's probably going to see his numbers keep declining. So, possibly he's been taking days off and doing extra work with Joshua on learning what a breaking ball is? Or maybe Lou = Magdal and he assumes we have a great chance at this thing and he's just going with who he thinks is the better option? I don't know. I don't know that I necessarily agree with it, but I'm sure this has a lot to do with it.