CA - Johnson has a .618 OPS. Yes, you'd like better. Last 28 days = .711. A .700 OPS from your catcher is perfectably acceptable. If Joh can find HIS stick, (.617 OPS in his last 28 das - which is only 9 games, of course), then catching isn't an untennable black hole. Since his return, Joh - NOT Johnson - has been the weak hitting catcher.
3B - Hannahan has been nice, (.746 OPS), which everyone believes is illusory. But Beltre is talking about being back before the July employment figures are released. If Beltre's miserable .664 OPS was *CAUSED* by playing hurt, then there is every reason to believe that when he returns, he could be a high .700s 3B in no time. THAT would fix the 3B problem. And, unlike the first 2/3 of the season.
SS - Wilson ain't great. But Cedeno was simply destroyed by the time he wsa gone. His .504 OPS is gargantuan failure. If Wilson only hits .600, that's a 100 point improvement at SS, (and Yuni was only hitting .609 while playing poor defense). If Wilson can hit .650, he's a MAJOR upgrade offensively.
LF - Langerhans has a .729 OPS in his brief tenure with the club. That stinks for a LF, unless the primary starter posted a .669, and his backup posted a .625. Langerhans, as weak as he is, was 100 points better than Wlad. But, if the club DOES sneak back into contention somehow with a nicely placed win streak, or an Angel fade -- the club DOES have a number of in-house possibilites who "might" be better than Ryan. Saunders seems a bit overwhelmed thus far - (4 for 22 with 9 Ks is not a particularly sterling start). But, if the club decides he's damaging the club (or himself) by continuing to stay in Seattle, then the one area at AAA with some other immediate options is OF. Clearly, there is no confidence that Saunders or Redmond or any other call-up will succeed. But, there are possibilities for LF that simply didn't exist in the organization at SS or 3B.
That leaves DH. I agree that DH is an issue. If Wak has had a real weakness in managing the club it has been the balancing act between Griffey and Sweeney. Z screwed up by keeping both, as the 2-headed, defense void for DH just hurts the roster flexibility too much. But, I don't see any hope of competing if Griffey is axed. You could bring up someone like Carp, sure. But, trading bats between Griffey and Carp ... how much help do you really generate?
Yes, the club could go after a "big bat" for LF ... but considering the club has managed to hold onto its 90 OPS+ while Branyan was hitting .600 and Cedendo was hitting .400 tells me the hitting HAS gotten stronger. The club doesn't need to produce a 100 OPS+ for the season. They just need to produce a 100 OPS+ for the next 2 months, (to give themselves a shot at staying in this race). You get .700 from catcher, .750 from 3B, .750 from LF, .675 from SS, I think it's doable. You need Branyan to start hitting again - and it wouldn't hurt for Lopez or Griffey to get hot, either.
The thing about this team -- thus far, when one guy has slumped, someone else has picked up the slack. But, the club really hasn't had much time where 2 or 3 guys got hot at the same time. They HAVE the talent where that is possible. And one big bat in LF won't matter at all, unless CA and 3b and SS are ACTUALLY improved. One Dunn will NOT save you from 2 Cedeno's.
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