Quote:
Originally Posted by fleury
I agree, IF they use that money on signing a guy like Lester. Melky's bat was a really nice threat to have to keep pitchers honest. Melky wasn't great on the field, I wholeheartedly agree - I just don't think that cost us much by way of runs compared to how much more he contributed with the bat.
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I think Saunders and Melky are pretty comparable to be honest and I could make a case for Saunders being better. He's a better defender to be sure, Saunders defensive profile is basically that he's a poor CF and average RF. I have to imagine that moving to LF will only help in that regard since it's the lowest position of defensive imporantance in the outfield. As far as batting goes...
.301/.352/.458 - OPS: .810
.273/.341/.450 - OPS: .791
... the top line is Melky the bottom Saunders, that is an incredably close, a mere .019 difference in OPS. Considering that Melky played in the hitter friendly Skydome while Saunders played in the vast expanse of Safeco I'd say that if you normalize the run environment Saunders comes out ahead. And you can add better baserunnering into that mix as well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fleury
As for this deal, the part I'm most disappointed with is that he's injury prone. When he inevitably gets put on the 60 day DL, we can't say we didn't see this coming. That part is frustrating as a fan because it seems to be the annual excuse, "if we were healthy..." when the reality is if you get guys who are injury prone, you get what you pay for on average.
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Meh, going off the past two years (so as to not punish Melky for the PED suspension) Melky has played 227 games (234 if you include his MILB rehab games), Saunders 210 (225). So still not much difference.
Now Melky is a switch-hitter and Saunders bats exclusively left and he has the platoon split normally associated with handedness (so that's a point in Melky's favor) Saunders is a good enough hitter that he's merely average against lefties (but a great bat against righties). Fortunately for the Blue Jays Kevin Pillar has the opposite afflication (He's average to above average against lefties but pretty bad against righties) so if the Jays are concerned about his health they can aide his health by giving him the occasional extra day off against lefties (They won't run a strict platoon he's not like Lind who couldn't hit a lefty to save his life) and suffer no ill effects on the field.