Thursday Bantering: Marcus Stroman to start Friday

It looks like Marcus Stroman is starting tomorrow night. Or maybe we made a trade for a player who I hadn’t heard of yet....

I was going to check Baseball Reference to see if there is a Marcus Stephan in baseball. I didn’t think there would be that many Marcuses out there, but Google tells me there are 9 Linkedin profiles for that name.

I’m on the side of ‘when in doubt give them an extra day off’, but I’m sure the team knows more about his status than I do.

So Jon Heyman has a bunch of Blue Jays notes and in them there is this:

Kendrys Morales is having the year that was expected now, with 27 home runs, 76 RBI and a .760 OPS. He somehow has a -0.2 WAR even though he is strictly a DH. Not sure why that would be, because his stats are way better than a replacement player should be, and since he doesn’t play the field, that’s all from offensive stats. (Yes, he is slow. But not that slow!)

Ummm I don’t know what Jon is seeing but Morales, as a DH, is to me right about replacement level. I know that replacement level for a DH is a different thing than replacement level for a SS. DHes are expected to hit a bit. most teams have someone in Triple A who could handle a bat enough to give the team a wRC+ of 95.

It would be nice to trade him, this winter, but I can’t see anyone taking him. Everytime I say something like that, someone tells me ‘Vernon Wells was traded, anyone can be’. unfortunately that was a special case of stupid from the Angels. I doubt that much stupid happens again.

Johan Keri tweeted this:

I can see Vlad up next year, but I doubt he’ll be hitting cleanup, just on the ‘we don’t want to put too much pressure on him’ thing.

Heyman also says:

Devon Travis would like to return before the year’s up for his own peace of mind.

I don’t see it happening. He’s not swinging a bat or anything right now.

There is a lot of talk about moving him to left. I don’t see it. His bat at second is a huge plus, in left, it wouldn’t be such a big deal. And someone would have to prove to me that he would be less likely to be hurt.

My question, about next season, is who is going to have utility infielder roles. I’m hoping they Darwin Barney leave. I’d like Richard Urena get a job on the MLB team but I can understand the team would like him to play everyday, but then....utility infielder on our team tends to be a full time job.

Of course, if it were up to me, I’d let Ezequiel Carrera go and give his job to Anthony Alford. I’m guessing that Teoscar Hernandez has the inside track on the open right field job.

But then, I’d also be looking to trade Kevin Pillar this summer. It always depends on the return, but I’d rather trade him a couple of years early than wait until his trade value disappears. Maybe he’s too much of a fan favorite to let go of, I don’t know.