Castro needs a hotter bat to stay at short for long term
I talked to Juan Castro before last night's game, and he told me he should be back in the lineup today.
The shortstop was scratched from the lineup last night in Cleveland because he is still feeling pain in his strained left groin. He had the day off Sunday, but realized he needed Monday off when he ran some agility drills at Progressive Field Monday afternoon and felt pain.
Dave Trembley most likely will want Castro back as soon as possible. The veteran has proven to be a very reliable defensive shortstop since the Orioles acquired him on July 27th. He has yet to make an error as an Oriole.
Baltimore Sun beat writer Jeff Zriebac brought up a good point yesterday. If Castro can get his batting average at least up to .250, he could possibly be the Orioles' everyday shortstop next year, barring any free agency acquisitions (which many feel is unlikely as far as a shortstop is concerned) or trades.
A trade will be tough as well because there aren't a lot of hot, young shortstops in the league, and the teams that do have them aren't eager to move such hard-to-come-by talent.
Castro has been impressive in the field, but will need just a bit more offensive production to be an everyday starter. Still, it's not unthinkable that he could fill the role next year until the Orioles get to the point where they want to spend some money on a free agent shortstop after 2009.
castro could bat 220 and be the everyday ss as far as i'm concern. defense and pitching wins games. the orioles have been the best hitting team in baseball since the all star break but they're not playing the best ball.
Neither Castro nor Cntron should even be considered for the everyday SS job next year. in the Al Beast we can not afford to give up near automatic out every time the 9 hole comes up, even if it is the SS batting 9th. the 4 teams we compete against do not have severely weak link in there lineup, and if we have to slug it out w/ NY, TOr, Tb, or Bos, we cant be giving away outs. this aint the 60's. Ballanger wouldnt even cut it these days in this division, im sorry old timers. its a new game. a 20 homerun hitter now is almost like a guy who hit 8 or 10 in the eighties. im tired of people saying a SS only needs to play good defense and not hit much. maybe in the Nl west, but even there, youd like to at least get some stolen bases from your ss. in our division a slow .220 hitter with no power haS NO PLACE playing everyday.
Amber,
Being strong defensively up the middle is much more important than needing a run producing SS. I think we've been spoiled with Cal and Migel. When the Blade was playing not only was he a weak hitter, he played whe there was no DH. Seems to me we need the defense far more then any offense Castro would/could add. The Orioles use to win championships on defense and pitching.....put Castro in there.
Jeff
Amber, I think that Fahey should be brought up to replace Cintron and platoon with Castro at ss.
Amber,
Castro is the best SS we have and his defense is far better than anyone we had out there for some time. If we get a shortstop that hits over .300 with some power, I would overlook a few miscues. However, none of the other options even come close.
Castro's defense takes runs away and pitchers generally pitch better with him at shortstop. Even with his anemic batting the team can score enough runs to win ballgames. Offense is not our problem.
My point is that I'd rather have him take his cuts and play excellent defense than to throw games away time and time again with the other shortstop options we have.
Amber,
He has been doing very well. I'm sure he'd do well over the course of the entire season as well. How about the others we've used this year...Hernandez, Bynum, Fahey, and Cintron? I know we've seen plenty of what they can do, but next season may be different and these guys may not do as poorly.
Here's my thing: We are looking for someone proven and that makes perfect sense; of course, I'm not an MLB owner. But all the proven players we see today start out as 'un'proven, meaning that an unproven player we have today could be a higher caliber player some years down the road. But with wanting to rebuild, it appears to me that there is not a lot of patience with allowing a player to improve and become better, while we go after the bigger players. We would have to give up a lot in return to get players, and let's face it; unless we put a lot of cash on the table, we don't have a whole lot of players that are sought after, meaning we are pretty much rotating the same players from the minor leagues through our lineup, if that makes any sense. Either that, or we'd have to lose one of our best players in return for about two or three not-so-good players or even draft picks...meaning we are back to square one.
I think of Tejada as an example, and I could be wrong. We were able to trade well and get Tejada, who was a proven shortstop. But that didn't allow us to be able to do much else, and anytime a team spoke with the Orioles, it was about trading for Tejada, and most likely that was it. And then you saw his attitude after a couple years. Many people support Miggy, but our team didn't really improve with him here.
Maybe I'm looking at it the wrong way, but I personally think that players don't become good overnight, and with some patience, even though we are rebuilding, these guys could develop into better players that may even be sought after later on. I know we want to start winning now...but instability will never get us to where we'd like to be. Like Adam Jones. We all see him improving greatly. But one bad year, and what happens with him? Do we talk about getting rid of him too, despite how much better we all know he can be?
F.Y.I. to those reading that don't agree: Just because a lot of activity takes place in the front office involving players from other teams and potential trades, that isn't always a good thing. If we are doing things that won't help us in the long run (trading for an aging player or losing three of our great players for one albeit high-caliber player), we may be putting ourselves in position to have not made any REAL progress at all. In other words, stats improvement is great as long as a W/L record improvement is there as well.
My point: We never know how good the players we have can be if we don't give them a chance to get better. How long should we take...?
...I'll let the owners decide that one.
An anemic batting average notwithstanding, I like the idea of Castro at SS next season, too. He could learn to be an excellent bunter and advance runners that way. Perhaps Hitting Coach Terry Crowley can give him some things to work on over the Winter.
Amber,
I have no issues with a .250 hitting Castro, a la Belanger-type next year if other areas of need are addressed. Big fan of yours.
Amber,
If Castro does get his batting average up to .250, do you think the O’s would still bring back Cintron next year?