Greetings baseball fans!

Houston Astros' right fielder, Josh Reddick is up next. He is really consistent, a rare quality for this day and age, but he is not really the best, he doesn’t really get starts, only pinch-hitting. He had 13 homeruns and 82 RBIs in 2017, and still has speed for a 31-year-old with 7 stolen bases. When I mean consistent, I mean he has a .314 average and has 150 hits, 34 doubles and 4 triples as a plus 30 year old. He could really dig when he tries and cuts first. He could also slug a lot with a .484 slugging percentage. As he is getting older, his stats and starts are sliding away from him and he got ranked flaw fully because to be at 66^th, you gotta have some starts (and I’m not saying that he doesn’t) and some at-bats under your belt. He has six dingers.

Evan “Longo” Longoria of the San Francisco Giants is 67^th and he has 20 home runs, 86 RBIs and a .261 average which is really low for third-basemen except for the RBIs, he’s sixth in that. He won Rookie of The Year in his first year and I gotta hand it to him, he’s really good with his glove, winning three Gold Gloves in 10 years, mustering three All-Star appearances and somehow powering one Silver Slugger and that came in 2009 when he was still good (and “good” is pushing it a little too far). With 33 dingers and 113 RBIs, I would put him closer to the best…. but there are other players and not only third basemen that are better than him.

The Twins have been looking for a player like Byron Buxton for a long time and got Aaron Hicks, but he’s not as good as Buxton. Hicks only had the limited power due to not playing at various injuries with only 20 homers and 26 stolen bases. They had Pedro Florimon for two sad years, with only 10 home runs and 18 stolen bases playing in 177 games posting a .220 average with 119 hits and 596 plate appearances, but the only characteristic both of them have that Byron has is speed and both of them got traded and are now playing somewhere else, not really needed there either. Byron Buxton even has more-than-limited power, with 117 hits, 6 triples, 16 home runs, 51 RBIs, .253 average and going back to the speed 29 stolen bases, as a rookie. He was 18^th in MVP voting last year and won the Gold Glove. You really don’t need glasses or a genius to figure out that he is going to the cornerstone phenom that the Twins should build on in the future.

Next is another rookie talent in Alex Bregman, he really took the spotlight last year in the hitting and fielding column in an already great Houston Astros’ lineup up and down. He took the full-time position of third baseman and gave Marwin Gonzalez some lee-way to play other positions. Last season, he was expected to play better than he did with maybe 26 HRs, 94 RBIs, 20 stolen bases, 40 doubles and a .291 BA, he played exceptionally well by hitting 19 homers, 71 RBIs, 17 stolen bases, 39 doubles and a .284 average. But the ‘Stros and MLB expected much better from him in his first full season and he didn’t give it, he did slug a lot and field very well, but he should move back a few spots, he tries, the Astros need a third-baseman, they don’t need the power, but there is no such thing as too much power.

Jon Lester of the Chicago Cubs is the next up. He could really pitch, even now when he’s old, but his stats are fading away. Take for example last season, when he had 180.2 innings and 180 strikeouts and gave up 101 runs, the second-highest it’s been in his whole career, though he had 8.97 SOs per 9 IP and he pitched the least he ever had which will create more time for him to pitch his Cy Young caliber way, he has some good spots, but not all, he should be moved back, maybe to 75^th.

Around the baseball diamond … 

Sorry, Phillies fans, I didn’t talk about your phenom, Odubel Herrera, he had a 45 game on-base streak going until on 5/20 his streak got stopped by the Braves and he went on-base less. So, unlike really any team in the Expansion era doesn’t have a whole list of absolutely GREAT leadoff hitters like the Phillies do: Pete Rose, Lenny Dykstra, Jimmy Rollins and now Odubel Herrera, who has pop, speed hitting for average, XBH power, and he could sprint for balls in the gap that even Kevin Pillar wouldn’t and when I say that Kevin Pillar won’t go for them, no one will except Odubel Herrera. Can Herrera help the Phils get better and possibly beat out the Braves for first place in the NL East, will he? He can help them a lot, but not as much as young studs as Ronald Acuna Jr., Ozzie Albies, Mike Soroka and Dansby Swanson can help the Braves be the best in the NL East. Can the Phils win the Wild Card and who will win the Wild Card? The Phillies have a more than perfect shot at winning the Wild Card or at least making it to that level, who will win it? I honestly don’t know but right now it looks something like the Cubs playing the Phillies in a game where both teams have been in existence for over 135 years. Pretty interesting, right?

Mookie Betts and J.D. Martinez are the sluggers in the American League, no sarcasm there, really big and powerful guys. Betts in a third-year baby while Martinez is a veteran. What is really crazy is that they’re on the same team, the Boston Red Sox, the super team of 2018. That makes them even more unstoppable.

So the Mets are out of their funk, at least for the time being. They just swept one of the best teams in the NL, the Diamondbacks. Amed Rosario, not one of the Mets’ boppers, would you say, no round-trippers yet this year, no four-baggers in 200 straight at-bats going back to late last year, then, he hits two, on two consecutive pitches and the second one came right after Asdrubal Cabrera came out of the bench warming job for the day with Jose Reyes and Philip Evans helping him and Callaway summoned him and he rocketed one over the fence with Tomas Nido on first, back-to-back home runs. Sad news for the day, Sandy Alderson designated Jose Lobaton for Assignment, sad to see him go, but the Mets need more players so hopefully the Mets will dig up a trade. To tell you the truth, Tomas Nido is NOT ready for the big leagues in my opinion, and even if Alderson calls him up, it really never hurts to have a backup catcher just in case, even though I think he is not ready for the majors. This is what I think, Devin Mesaraco in the starting role and Lobaton backing him up with Nido is they need him. Now it’s going to be tight, Mesaraco starting with Nido backing him up with no one to follow, in history, the Mets are injury-stricken over the past few years, so they shouldn’t designate him for assignment. It’s really good for Nido because he’s getting full-time now in with the Mets in the big leagues.

One of the best bullpens in the game, the Arizona Diamondbacks and high and mighty, so they were, until the Mets squeezed the juice out of them two days in a row, crushing them, so will they be so big, strong and scary in their next series against The Brewers on 5/20/18? I dunno. So, Sergio Romo actually started a game, no, two consecutive games in 11 seasons, 2.1 IP in all, six punch-outs, pretty good if I was a coach, I’d put him in a starting role. Jordan Hicks is the new, right-handed Aroldis Chapman, he threw 105, 103,104,105,104 mph to poor Odubel Herrera, poor, poor, Herrera, and it was like someone shooting at him, with legit bullets. I still don’t know what really happened, but after Amir Garret struck out Javier Baez. Baez got heated and then the two of them exchanged some words and then the benches cleared and they were at it, maybe it was some history from 2014, when Anthony Rizzo had some words to Aroldis Chapman and the benches cleared, maybe it wasn’t that history, maybe something else, no one knows.

This is going to make your mind explode; baseball has royal connections, Meghan Markle had a great-great uncle that actually played in the Show, Happy Evans. He was in the Negro Leagues from 1920 to 1937, and he was pretty good. Kendrys Morales actually pitched an inning and he got Jonathan Lucroy to fly out to end the inning, not to be mean, but he’s a little too big to be on a mound, you’re statement is as good as ours. I know it’s not even August but I still want Sandy Alderson to get a good jump on getting great players this offseason, on the trading block are players like Bryce Harper to Manny Machado, just wishes, just wishes. You fans could answer this one just in your head or leave a comment. In his career, how many times did Jimmy Rollins steal over 40 bases?

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