Sunday, May 08, 2005

Catching platoon: Garner's plan for the remainder of the season is to split the playing time between Brad Ausmus and Raul Chavez at a 60-40 clip.

Ausmus will catch Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte and Brandon Backe, and Chavez will catch Ezequiel Astacio and Roy Oswalt.

Sad as it is to say, it will be a battle to see who has the lower OPS by the end of the season.
Last year: Ausmus - 631, Chavez - 515.
Through 29 games this year: Ausmus - 567, Chavez - 541
That sucks.

Oh, and I thought Todd Self, one of our better hitting prospects (.382 / .477 / .551 ) was a 1B, but apparently he's been playing right field also (It still lists him as an IF on the official roster, but he played RF tonight. Oh, and in case you're liking that stat line, note that Self is already 26 and it's in a hitter's park - Round Rock). It's looking more and more likely that Lance will move to 1B permanently when Bagwell retires, somewhat reducing his value, in my opinion.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hasn't made the wire yet, but Self was called up to the show last night. He will join the team in Miami tonight. Don't know where that sends anyone else.

Anonymous said...

I saw that too on Self. I watched him last year in Round Rock and loved his approach to hitting. There have been enough successful big league players that didn't have twenty or thirty home run power to make me believe he can be a produtive first basemen or corner outfielder.

Jack said...

Glad to hear the news about Todd Self being called up. I'm not sure where he's going to play; perhaps he'll start platooning with Bagwell once Berkman moves back to the OF, or maybe he'll become the 5th OF because the Lamb-in-the-OF experiment didn't take. Either way, it can't hurt to have him on the team. As much flak as I give Purpura for not signing more bullpen help (Chris Hammond has a 2.00 ERA!!), he's made some nice moves on the margins lately (getting Kieschnick and Tom Martin cheaply, and not hesitating to bring up prospects such as Astacio and Self.) Thumbs up to this one. Maybe this means Bagwell might go on the DL?