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Robinson Cano, 2B. Rating = 7 to 8
(DNP against Andersen. Went 0-for-4 against Chen. Went 509-for-1755 against left hand pitchers previously, with 57 homers, 94 doubles and 115 walks.)
Cano is who he is; his performance against LHP's is known. Known to be very good, that is.
Lifetime he hits lefties at a .290 clip, which has got to be about the highest in the game for LH-on-LH. He's about .290/.350/.450 each year when he's got the platoon disadvantage. Like Fielder, he simply dials back the power a little when there's a lefty out there -- hits .300 with some gap power, as opposed to hitting .320 with mammoth power vs RHP.
....
That's why Brad "Logo" Miller looks so weird against LHP's; 80%, 90% of lefty hitting stars dial it down when LH-on-LH. (Junior didn't and Ichiro didn't, but everybody else does.) If Miller can really make that work, wow. In those two games, it looked like he could -- he pulled the ball with authority despite the platoon disadvantage. Who IS this guy?
The locker room calls him Crazy Legs, I guess. Maybe at the All-Star Game they'll call him Logo.
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Kyle Seager, 3B. Rating = 3 to 4
He's a bit off kilter, yeah.
Looks to me like he's gotten a little overconfident. In chess, the Russians call this "Dizzy With Success." As our Fearless Leader J.V. Stalin wrote about early Party political successes,
But the successes have their seamy side, especially when they are attained with comparative “ease” — “unexpectedly” so to speak. Such successes sometimes induce a spirit of vanity and conceit: “We can achieve anything!”, “There is nothing we can’t do!” People not infrequently become intoxicated by such successes; they become dizzy with success, lose all sense of proportion and the capacity to understand realities; they show a tendency to overrate their own strength and to underrate the strength of the enemy; adventurist attempts are made to solve all questions of socialist construction “in a trice.” In such a case, there is no room for concern toconsolidate the successes achieved and to utilise them systematically for further advancement. Why should we consolidate the successes achieved when, as it is, we can dash to the full victory of socialism “in a trice”: “We can achieve anything!”, “There is nothing we can’t do!”
Hence the Party’s task is to wage a determined struggle against these sentiments, which are dangerous and harmful to our cause, and to drive them out of the Party.
Seager's loading up a bit much, is looking to yank the ball, and it's getting him out of his game some. He still looks tough, but that little dose of greed has thrown off his timing. It used to be his thing to let the ball get deep, to take a little liner the other way ... now he seems to think he is George Brett.
We don't doubt that he'll figure it out, and get back to being Kyle Seager the plucky little 115-OPS+ third baseman. Until then, Romero's in there at 3B for me, against LHP's.
I know, I know. Don' hold yer breath.
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Justin Smoak, 1B. Rating = 4. Okay, 5. Okay, 7.
Took some very modest swings in both games. Worked a walk, had okay showings ... WHAaaaa? He was 4-for-6 with two walks?!
He's unrecognizable. The phrase "Staying Within Yourself" gets tossed around a lot ... Smoak is so intelligent, comparatively speaking, that you're expecting a different unie number on his back.
Smoak shows you his ceiling this year, we sez.
That ceiling won't blow your elevators off, we sez. But hey. His career OBP against LHP's is .293. Right now it's looking like .350. If he's markedly better than "terrible" -- right now that looks like a given -- then that's collateral damage to add to the Can-O Sh-O.
Share a bite of that hot dog, C.J.?
In the booth, they put it on Justin Smoak to deploy the anti-LHP countermeasures. At SSI, we say nay verily. But if we could get 8 little compy's to wolf-pack with Robinson Cano, well, that's better than what most teams had. By "most teams" we particularly refer to the Blengino Mariners, but also refer to the 2014 Rangers.
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