2020-2021 Hot Stove Thread

[AZOldDawg]

One thing White could do is shorten up with two strikes and work on contact. He's obviously a great athlete.

[bpj]

DT, your screen grab shows 60 games. You didn't even bother showing me his AA numbers. LOL. You seriously want to quote a 60-game sample size and point to that as "no improvement shown?" Dustin Ackley got, what, 5 full seasons? Evan White deserves just as much time.

Look, the game is about run differential. Not just scoring runs, but preventing them. If White's OPS+ is 67 then what is he doing to prevent runs? And as the best def. 1b in the entire game, he's actually doing quite a bit. The hits he takes away, the DP he creates, the outs he saves by digging balls out, etc. He even helps your starter stay in the game longer. On top of that he runs the bases tremendously well.

This is the kind of thing that really matters in the NBA. Sure you may score 35 ppg but how many are you allowing on the defensive end? Are you a +10 player or a net negative when you're on the court? Though, it's extremely visible and important in NBA, I see it having strong influence in baseball as well even though there's 9 defenders on the diamond rather than 5 and thus things are more spread out amongst each individual in term's of their impact.

But that smaller share of impact also works on the offensive side to limit his liability. If you have 9 hitters in your lineup, you can afford to have 1 or even 3-4 not pulling their weight depending on how good the others are.

Ultimately, it's important to remember every facet of the game and that the name of the game is run differential. Scoring more than you allow. Evan White has a place on my Mariners team until 2025 at least and that's because of what he does defensively and on the bases AND where I see the rest of the offense being around him.

Nobody deserves the amount of time Smock and Ackley got.

Who has that ever worked out for? C'mon man.

smoak! He had 2 years of 800 plus OPs and an All star 883 OPs year

I have no doubts that White could be a Justin Smoak.

He'll put it together for the two seasons after the M's cut him once he's either a Blue Jay, Padre or Royal.

[AT Funchal-Madeira]

One thing White could do is shorten up with two strikes and work on contact. He's obviously a great athlete.

Yes, he has plenty of power, but his swing is a bit long and he has been completely overmatched by the quality of MLB pitching he faced this year. For some reason I hear he's planning to come into spring training with about twenty to twenty five more pounds of bulk. Didn't see him getting weak at the end of the season, he just was guessing at the plate, expanding his zone, and generally getting more helpless every day. I'd send him back down to AAA if there is a AAA next season. Regardless of his defense... He's not a major league hitter at this point. Something has to change and adding twenty five pounds is probably not the answer.

[D-train]

One thing White could do is shorten up with two strikes and work on contact. He's obviously a great athlete.

Yep, he totally swings from the heels. Lots of Ks and everyone gets excited about his hard contact but that because he swings like his lone goal in life is to hit a 500 foot HR. Of course when you swing that hard, the once every 17 swings you make solid contact you will have high exit velo. Not rocket science.

[bpj]

Evan Whites current numbers make his best comparable Carlos Peguero.

https://www.fangraphs.com/players/evan- ... 760&page=1

[D-train]

Peguero also debuted at age 24 and actually hit a little better than White at .196/.622 in 47 games. Finished with a .194/.647 career line. Following his big league career his has seemingly played in every country other than Iceland, Bangladesh and Uganda........

https://www.baseball-reference.com/regi ... guer001car

[Hanjag]

I have a lot more confidence in White than many of you. Arguments at some point become beating the ground that covers the dead dog. He will need to make some adjustments. I think he was over his head and spun out.

Someone said triple AAA for some time. I agree.

Anyone can play 1B for a time. France, or Moore, Marmelejos. I kinda wished they had sent him down and worked in one adjustment and sent him back up after a week. KInda, a giant labratory type arrangement. Pull him back to the alternate site this is what they are doing this is one way you can compensate.

[Donn Beach]

from Dipoto's comments it didn't sound like they intended to have White in AAA...

[D-train]

I can see why the didn't think they were rushing him at the beginning of the season but after a month they just kept running him out there because of that contract. That's the very definition of rushing a guy. Keep playing him in the big leagues for reasons other than what is best for his development. With Zunino it was because they needed him and with White because of that contract using the excuse of "well his D is amazing"!

[Coeurd’Alene J]

The fact that this team committed to an unproven rookie with the head scratching contract that they did, doesn’t give me a lot of confidence going forward and it is obvious they let him get exposed. I get there was no where to send a struggling rookie, but that didn’t help his learning curve