Chad Moriyama Dodgers, Sabermetrics, Scouting
The quote found in the title basically sums up Don Mattingly‘s logic when he was asked about Andre Ethier‘s struggles against lefties, as reported by Eric Stephen of True Blue LA.
Part of the struggles for Ethier have been against left-handed pitchers, against whom Ethier is hitting .218/.282/.315 this season. But don’t expect Mattingly to pinch hit for Ethier in late-game situations any time soon.
“He’s one of our guys. It’s like pinch hitting for Matt if he struggled against righties. It’s the way it is. If we fall with Matt, we fall,” Mattingly said. “We’ll fall with Andre, unless I have an option that says, ‘I’ve got to do this.’ But most of the time I don’t have that option.”
What about the right-handed Jerry Sands, who is hitting .362 with 13 home runs in 44 games since July 1 in Triple A? It doesn’t sound like he would be much of an option either.
“As we get into September we’ll have a few extra guys, we’ll be able to do some things. Every team is going to have guys who are options,” Mattingly said. “If they were tremendous options they wouldn’t be in Triple A.”
I’m not going to pretend I know more about Jerry Sands than Mattingly or the Dodgers organization. I don’t. They surely have inside information on all their players. However, one just has to call bullshit on this specific bit of logic, don’t we?
Ethier has a .218/.282/.315/.597 line against lefties in 2012 and is .238/.298/.351/.650 against them for his career. Juan Uribe, over the last TWO YEARS, has a .196/.260/.287/.546 line. He is currently 0-for-August.
So to say that Sands wouldn’t be a better option for the team at some point … it’s just ridiculous.
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1) Replacement options in AAA have already proven that they can hit better than the level of the players up for replacement.
2) If they can’t prove anything at AAA and thus can’t get a call to the MLB, then where are they supposed to prove themselves?
3) There are never better options stuck at AAA than in the MLB? A.J. Ellis says hi to Rod Barajas. Paul LoDuca sends his wishes to Charles Johnson. Ad nauseam.
4) Having greater knowledge doesn’t always mean it’s right, nor does it mean it’s free of bias.
5) It doesn’t have anything to do with contracts and egos? Just performance? That’s why Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier had playing time stolen by Juan Pierre, Luis Gonzalez, and Andruw Jones, right? I believe the organization.
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Just terrible, seriously. Please find a better excuse or something, because I hate to believe that’s the actual line of thinking.
Rah rah rah, let’s trade everything to win now but let typical backwards thinking get in the way of making moves that would actually help the team do so when it comes to roster construction.
Awesome.
This is why the Dodger organization pisses me off. A few weeks ago, Mattingly said something along the lines that now isn’t the time to develop prospects. But is now the time to patiently wait for Uribe and Rivera to snap out of their funk? Newsflash: they aren’t in any funk, they are just putrid dead weight on the bench. We need to bring up Sands. It’s absolutely atrocious that we have Rivera and his .237 avg and Uribe and his .182 average.
Yeah, that’s the thing for me as well. The only thing they’ve proven is that they’re horrible.
Mattingly isn’t saying things any differently than Bochy who said he didn’t want to play Belt because he wasn’t a finished product.
Of course, the Giants eventually ran out of options at first base because Huff kept getting hurt. (Ruining the Dodgers playoff hopes along with it.)
I don’t see that as a good thing. :o
Don Mattingly: “we should just scrap the minor leagues.”
He’s in the minors because he’s a minor leaguer. Sure, he had a .925 OPS in the majors last September. But then we put him back in the minors, and he needs to stay there because he’s a minor leaguer and Rivera/Loney are both major leaguers.