Year Two of the Matt Quatraro tenure. Time to take a step up this year. Active in free agency and trades this offseason. A new look pitching rotation and bullpen. Will the young players take the leap up offensively? Bobby Witt extension? New stadium? Will Vinny recover from injury? Salvy taking aim at the Royals record book? Will Cole Ragans turn into the best Royals starting pitcher since Greinke 1.0?
Free Agents/Trades Acquisitions
Seth Lugo, SP
Michael Wacha, SP
Kyle Wright, SP
Hunter Renfroe, OF/DH
Will Smith, RP
Chris Stratton, RP
Nick Anderson, RP
Adam Frazier, 2B
Garrett Hampson, INF/OF
Matt Sauer, RP [Reply]
Arraez in the leadoff spot with Bobby behind him. His defense isn't that great. Would have put Garcia down in the sixth spot or so. Probably his natural spot.
Originally Posted by ChiefsCountry:
Arraez in the leadoff spot with Bobby behind him. His defense isn't that great. Would have put Garcia down in the sixth spot or so. Probably his natural spot.
Dude's a modern day Tony Gwynn and he's such a butcher out there that teams can't figure out where to play him so they trade him.
I'm only half joking when I say I'd try to convert him to C. With the probability of robo-umps in the future and the rise of pitch-com, any swinging dick with a glove on his wrist can manage to play C these days.
Give him 4 months to learn the footwork and he's gotta be at least playable back there. He can't be any worse than Tony Cruz was defensively - he was a 3b conversion project who didn't do anything correctly behind the dish. he still managed several years in MLB despite also not being able to hit worth a damn. [Reply]
Originally Posted by ChiefsCountry:
Arraez in the leadoff spot with Bobby behind him. His defense isn't that great. Would have put Garcia down in the sixth spot or so. Probably his natural spot.
Originally Posted by dlphg9:
Arraez would have been so fucking sweet to get. BWJ would probably lead the league in RBIs if he were out lead off guy.
Boy, with his contact rates and the fact that you'd definitely get to BWJ in the first inning either way, I think I'd put him in the 2 hole with Garcia in the 1 spot still. Because he has such good bat/ball skills you could have him take a couple pitches if you wanted to give Garcia a chance to run. You'd have BWJ in a better RBI spot most of the time. You could use hit and run really well with Arraez ahead of Witt as well whenever you had Garcia on base.
I think it opens up the run production potential of Witt a little more if you did that. Would cost him a handful of ABs over the course of the season; probably about 15-20 PAs based on most models. But I think you'd make it up with a slightly more dangerous top of the order.