Transmogrified Tiger

welcome to the big leagues Matt, here's one of the hardest RHSP on LHH and 3 lefty relievers to start you off

Yesterday's home plate ump called a foul ball that obviously did not make contact either, weird

Part of me wonders if this is what JD wants, he turns 63 in a few weeks so I wouldn't be surprised if he was secure enough financially to prefer not to grind 150+ games over the season, especially with the travel.

All the more reason to capitalize now

Dan Kantrovitz rn

It doesn't really? I don't see the delayed success of Encarnacion and Bautista as particularly relevant to projecting Mervis, but you seemed to be saying that them having delayed success was factually incorrect which is what I was speaking to.

Encarnacion had over 3000 MLB PA before turning 29 and a 106 wRC+ to show for it(after turning 29: 5000+ PA, 136 wRC+). As a bottom of the defensive spectrum player I think mediocre is a pretty fair characterization.

The Cubs are hitting .260/.320/.391 and are on pace to score 4-5 runs today.

Benefit of hindsight after the home run, but his outings seem a lot like watching Harden. No hitter looks *good* against him, but he's got more baserunners than he should due to the walks and then you look up and he's at 100 pitches after 5 and giving up 3 runs because of one mistake and maybe an unlucky sequence another inning.

He's punctuating it with home runs so it's not a complete black hole, but yeah for a few weeks now he's been struggling

Are the ski mask style sunglasses a fashion or sponsorship thing? Seeing them everywhere this year.

Arraez...struck out? Assuming this is some ploy that ends up with him on third base somehow

Mervis is an April birthday who was a college draftee and spent 2 full seasons going from ExST to AAA, I'm not really seeing the missed developmental time. Any gaps of significance are pretty universal with his peers because they'd be because of covid. As for his prospect pedigree, he's a fringe top 100 guy because the bar is so high for 1B(Fangraphs lists 3 in their Top 112 and one of those is still catching a fair amount), and the adjustments he made that brought him success didn't afford him a ton of time for industry consensus to catch up. Prospects fail definitionally so if you want Mervis's median outcome it's not gonna be great, but with his sustained peripheral improvement there is no specific gotcha for him specifically that says he's a particularly poor bet to be a good hitter.

Mervis has just under 1000 PA as a pro and he wasn't repeating AAA after a failed stint or anything like that, so on his side of the ledger I don't think age is all that meaningful for his translation to MLB. Whether that translation actually includes the names Bertz mentioned depends on how much of their development came after reaching MLB via age-related progression. Even if that's a healthy chunk of it, Mervis doesn't have to literally be Mark Teixeira to be plenty useful.

He's 2 for 3 as a pinch hitter this year, 1.334 OPS!!!! More seriously, you want a LHH in that role, because the guys on the roster who might be PH for or platooned is very right handed, and there's fewer and fewer LHRP in bullpens. You could keep Rios in that role, and I'd be fine with that. But Rios has already had a shot at this role and is hitting .100/.280/.300 w/ and 36% K rate. Giving Rios everyday reps in Iowa to find his timing if and until Hosmer's production nosedives below that bar seems like a reasonable enough idea to me.

Even if we take away the RD v. the A's because reasons(5 NL teams have had their shot against the White Sox and Royals with their horrible RDs too), the +19 they'd be left with would be 4th in the NL.

If you don't want to call up Morel unless he's gonna play a lot, then I think I agree with Ross. With Mervis' call-up, there's not going to be many 1B or DH at bats available, doubly so with Mancini coming out of his early April struggle and looking like an above average bat we expected. Hoerner and Swanson are gonna play basically every day, while they may require a rest day on occasion(Nico more than Dansby), it's not something that will happen every week that you can bank on Morel being able to get regular PT that way. Bellinger is playing too well to not play every day in CF, and even if you want to shield him against LHP, Velazquez is probably just as good an option and that represents his likely future and he's already on the roster. Which leaves 3B, where Morel has the paradox of being too similar to Wisdom in profile. For as much as people groan at Madrigal's playing time, he's being used in a specific, almost sacrificial way. As a crude example, per BR Madrigal has had only 30% of his PA come against "Finesse" pitchers, compared to 43% for Nico(who serves as a team baseline) and 45% for Wisdom. The playing time Madrigal gets are the worst matchups to throw Morel into, otherwise we'd have just given them to Wisdom while he was hitting like peak Bryant. So until Morel demonstrates contact ability that he probably never will(his K rate in AAA is 29%), or Wisdom falls into a deep enough slump that you consider Morel a superior every day 3B option, Morel is kinda stuck unless an injury shakes things loose.

Amaya gets another start, and it's Hosmer who falls off for Mervis instead of Mancini(both Hosmer and Mancini started against Cabrera in Miami)

It is Rios being optioned

boy I don't know if I'd let Wisdom take this AB

I think tempering expectations is fine, especially given Mervis's lack of traditional pedigree. I also think it's a good reminder that in basically every situation, one player is not turning the tides of the season. Mervis wasn't going to turn a bunch of their recent losses into wins, and he's not gonna drastically change the trajectory of the rest of the season, but it's good that they're getting him on the roster and he should hopefully help shorten the number of non-factors at the end of the order even when injury or rest happens.

just the knowledge they'll get to share the dugout with Mervis tomorrow has revived the offense, amazing

Three different batted balls with .500+ xBA for Mancini and it took Thomas getting turned around for one to finally fall

maybe a good time for a day off for Seiya tomorrow

It probably doesn't matter as much on the Mervis end, but I'm curious if the outgoing is Hosmer or Rios(unless there's a hitter ready to hit the DL). The former seems like 'we gave Hosmer a try and need to save Ross from himself', the latter means their rhetoric about depth worries is at least partially sincere.