Serious and/or wrong answers only. (Yes, that’s an oxymoron.)
It’s one thing when arguably the worst position player on your roster comes up in a key situation that could potentially end the game and saddle you with a loss. It’s another thing when that player is not scheduled to appear in that spot, only for the team to insert him there anyway.
That happened last night, where Eddie Rosario inexplicably (to me) pinch-hit for Eli White in the highest-leverage situation of the game to that point. If it were Nick Allen, yeah, okay, one guy was at least presumably known for his bat at some point, and one wasn’t. There’d still be the issue that Sean Murphy of the well-above-average hitting inputs and outputs wasn’t the pinch-hitter of choice, but at least the guy being replaced made sense. But replacing Eli White? The guy good enough to start but apparently not good enough to take the highest-leverage PA of the game? The guy with a reverse split this year in both inputs and outputs, such that there are no obvious struggles against righties to worry about?
So, yeah. Be serious, or don’t. It’s not like the Braves treated that situation seriously, anyway.
(The serious answer is that Emilio Pagan has a pretty big traditional split, I guess. But how that justifies Eddie Rosario over Eli White is very unclear to me, in light of the pinch-hitter penalty, beyond just the player skill issue.)
Daily Notes
Record: 17-19
Yesterday’s wOBA and xwOBA: .213 / .190 (Season rank: 14th | 13th)
Yesterday’s wOBA and xwOBA allowed: .360 / .280 (Season rank: 18th | 12th)
Yesterday’s homers: 1
Yesterday’s homers allowed: 2
Record when out-xwOBAing: 12-8 (League: 405-140)
Record when out-xwOBAed: 5-11 (League: 140-405)
Record when out-wOBAing: 16-2 (League: 464-83)
Record when out-wOBAed: 1-17 (League: 83-464)
Record when outhomering: 8-3 (League: 282-80)
Record when outhomered: 3-11 (League: 80-282)