In the 'I wish I had said this' department The Southpaw mentioned that Marco Scutaro has set a new personal high in games played in a season this year. Scoot has produced almost exactly at his career averages batting .260/.340/.355 this year compared to .260/.325/.377 career. I hope that he won't be playing as much playing as much next year. If he plays more than 100 games next year, I think we'll be on the outside looking in again at playoff time. And if he hits at the top of the order more than a few times next year, well then you'll know we haven't learned anything from this season.
JP said Scoot was our team MVP. This should be added to our reasons to fire JP. I mean if you have such little understanding of what goes into winning baseball that you think a guy who's OP+ is 86 is your MVP then you have no business running a team. Frig....putting aside that Doc is the team MVP, offensively who comes in front of him? Hmmmm Wells, Rios, Overbay, Inglett, Rolen, Lind, Barajas.
For that matter are we better off having him on the team? Without him Eckstein and Mac would have played more. Mac is clearly much much better defensively. Eck is better offensively. Honestly I think we'd have been better off with a combination of Inglett, Eckstein and Mac. Heck I'm sure that Scott Campbell wouldn't have been that much worse. And without him we might have someone at the top of the order that would get on base more and slug at a little better than a .355 clip.
Yeah, without him McDonald plays a lot more and he isn't as good a hitter but that is blunted by having him bat 9th. I'm not sure that by having someone that hits better (Overbay?) hitting near the top of the order in Scoot's place and having Mac at the bottom of the lineup doesn't improve the offense as well as the defense. So MVP....I don't think so.
Before next season we will have to make some decisions with our middle infielders. With Hill back we'll have him, Scoot, Inglett, Bautista and whoever we . It will be interesting to see how things all shake out, but if they shake out with Scoot batting more than 500 plate appearances again, we are in trouble.