FanPost

When do you start The Fort everyday? Update


You might remember in the middle of July I made a fan post inquiring when do you start playing The Fort everyday. The Fort was bashing the ball, and Barajas had completely cooled off from his May hot streak. At some point you have to look past how some of the pitchers might be more comfortable with Rod, and look at the fact that The Fort is having a breakout season at the plate. Let's take a look at the numbers:

July 17 AVG/OBP/OPS

The Fort: .255/.336/.854

Barajas: .216/.286/.655

That was when I was motivated to make the post in the first place. The opinions were mixed, but no one really threw out any concrete numbers as to their guess of how good he would have to bat to start everyday. Most people who responded agreed he should at least see some more playing time than he was to see if he could keep it up. Well, he was given a little more playing time, and below are the stats now-

August 2nd

The Fort: .273/.344/.913

Barajas: .203/.279/.634

As you can see, The Fort's numbers grew, and Barajas continues to struggle. And just for fun, here's the numbers from when Barajas started to cool off at the beginning of June. You might remember The Fort also struggled at the beginning of the year too. So as you can imagine, that results in a pretty wide gap.

June 10th- Present

The Fort: .333/.395/.1.089

Barajas: .133/.229/.494

Yup, that would be a full .200 better in batting average and over .550 better in OPS in that span. Ridiculous. You want to know what else is ridiculous? My roommate was up in arms the other day about how bad Barajas is at throwing people out. I knew he was horrible at throwing people out this year, but when he offered me this bet, "I'll bet you he hasn't even thrown out 5 people this year." I had to accept. I mean, I've seen him throw a couple people out. He had to have at least like 10, right? I won't disclose the amount we bet, but, well, here's some defensive numbers too-

ERA/Stolen Bases/Caught Stealing

The Fort: 3.86/30/5

Barajas: 3.36/58/4

FOUR?! Are you kidding me, FOUR out of 62? I mean, The Fort's caught stealing percentage isn't much better, 6% to 14%, but I think their ERAs are close enough to show that their defense isn't all that different. In terms of ERA, it's also worth noting that Rod got to catch all of the studs in the first half, whereas The Fort always has to catch KC, Bedard, etc.

So if you're Clint Hurdle, you just can't keep ignoring these numbers...can you? And if you still don't think he should be starting everyday, please post what it would take for you to make that leap.

Also, sorry, I know it's probably not BD etiquette to make another fanpost about the same thing, but I thought it was worth it make a new one to show all the new numbers rather than just 'bump' my old post.

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