Back on the farm

[richig07]

He has a positive owar and a positive dwar. He has decent power and he has a .248 average in limited time because of his injury. His average has improved every year except this injury-interrupted one. Include an ops of .844 and .527 waaWL%. He has a low salary and is a dynamite fielder.

I’m quite happy with him as the right field starter.

i don't take a player's injury into account when judging a player unless it's chronic. nor should anyone imo.

He's always hurt, though. Not a new thing.

And he's played 33 games this year. 36 last year. How much can you really read into his OPS? His bat has improved, but how exactly can you feel anywhere near comfortable relying on him as an every day RF'er?

Cespedes is 23 and shouldn't take long to get up to the bigs. That will be the end of it.

 

[idseer]

he is NOT always hurt. no more than robert or jimenez! this year he has an injury. that accounts for his limited time this year. last year they invested in mazara so they played mazara (much more than they should have)! it wasn't because engel was injured.
we can rely on engel as much as we can rely on anyone else and yes, i'd be comfortable with that. he's a decent bat and an extraordinarily good fielder. as long as we already have the bats we do have in the lineup i am confident engel would be fine in right. but you go right ahead and ASSUME a rookie who's never played above aa is obviously better.

 

[Mingo]

IMO - the most likely RF next season is Gavin Sheets. Sheets seems to be one of those guys who rises to the occasion when the pressure is on. Sheets still has to prove - though - he can hit Lefties often enough to be an everyday guy.

Betting Adam Engel would be the starting RF for the Sox next season is a poor bet to make and I love the guy.

 

[idseer]

IMO - the most likely RF next season is Gavin Sheets. Sheets seems to be one of those guys who rises to the occasion when the pressure is on. Sheets still has to prove - though - he can hit Lefties often enough to be an everyday guy.

Betting Adam Engel would be the starting RF for the Sox next season is a poor bet to make and I love the guy.

i'm not betting he'll be the starter. i'm saying i'd be fine with it. and you're probably right about sheets.

 

[Jiddy]

Speaking of Mazara...I forgot about him during our season of euphoria here...Total sh*t for Detroit from the looks of it...Good move dumping him.

 

[richig07]

he is NOT always hurt. no more than robert or jimenez! this year he has an injury. that accounts for his limited time this year. last year they invested in mazara so they played mazara (much more than they should have)! it wasn't because engel was injured.
we can rely on engel as much as we can rely on anyone else and yes, i'd be comfortable with that. he's a decent bat and an extraordinarily good fielder. as long as we already have the bats we do have in the lineup i am confident engel would be fine in right. but you go right ahead and ASSUME a rookie who's never played above aa is obviously better.

I am not going to sit and guarantee that Cespedes is better. Anyone can bust. However, Engel is hurt more than you are making it sound like. He has only played more than 100 games once since coming up in 2017. Eloy might even finish this year with more games played than Engel. Eloy has had one bad injury and then another more short term injury in 2019. Where he still played 122 games. I'm not sure about Robert having an injury history besides this year, but maybe I'm missing something? Engel is just constantly on and off the 10 day IL with some sort of an issue. I won't dispute that he should have played over Mazara.

He's a fantastic part time player, IMO. He could play forever in the big leagues as a 4th outfielder. In small sample sizes (36 games last year, 33 this year) his bat has improved. To me, he just seems like another guy who regresses to his career mean offensively the second you start trotting him out every single day. I haven't seen nearly enough to suggest otherwise. That's usually how it goes. For an example close to our hearts - look at James McCann with the Mets.

I also realize that Cespedes is unproven. However, you're not going to keep a prospect of his caliber away from RF unless Engel literally started setting the world on fire.

 

[richig07]

IMO - the most likely RF next season is Gavin Sheets. Sheets seems to be one of those guys who rises to the occasion when the pressure is on. Sheets still has to prove - though - he can hit Lefties often enough to be an everyday guy.

Betting Adam Engel would be the starting RF for the Sox next season is a poor bet to make and I love the guy.

The issue with Sheets, like you said, is that he has yet to notch a career big league hit against lefties. He also had an OPS in the 500's or something dreadful in AAA against lefties. Needs work, big time. Otherwise, he'll just be a lifetime platoon guy.

 

[richig07]

Speaking of Mazara...I forgot about him during our season of euphoria here...Total sh*t for Detroit from the looks of it...Good move dumping him.

He got waived by Detroit a couple weeks ago and nobody claimed him. He's a free agent and without a team to finish the season.

He sucks. A shame... he had a ton of raw power coming up. I thought it could be developed. I don't how he turned into some punchy singles hitter. Just odd.