Monday planner: Reds, rivals and rookies

Agreed-- foolish move

I felt they could have waited. Based on the data they had it was basically which set of at bats do you believe the first half where he hit .220 or the second half where he hit .300 and played every day. Tje second half more closely tied to his minor league career stats so they put more trust in that. I would have waited. But I can also see why they didnt.

Lets also not forget that this team is notorious for slow starts. Even Cutch is at the mendoza line. Of course he is playing hurt. If he doesnt get right it wont much matter how anyone else plays.

Not a foolish move, was a balanced one. The only way this becomes a foolish move is if JHay goes complete bust, especially in 2017 and 2018. Otherwise, the Bucs have two options that will be cheap if JHay is an allstar at the end of the contract and cheap buyouts if not. to get the cheap options you pay up for 2017 and 2018 and that is the risk/reward. balanced.

They could have waited another year CMat.

If this continues it becomes another untradeable contract like Tabata and Morton. Pretty sizeable chunk of change in 2016.

The actual "commitment" part of the extension is really just the first free agent season they guaranteed at $10m. And ok, I suppose the last arb season at $7.5m if he does actually turn out to stink. That's still not much risk in my book, in the off chance that the player he flashed last year was for real.

I think expectations are really the issue right now. Guy never before flashed much power and takes walks like the plague. When the hits aren't falling, this is the player you end up with. He'll be better than this, almost certainly, but it's fairly clear now that the true talent level didn't take some major jump as we all hoped.

Harrison was always going to be a better 2-hitter or lower than leadoff, so dropping him was only a matter of time. I just don't know who is really showing the skill set to take his place there right now. Certainly not Cervelli or Mercer.

Good time to get Kang and Rodriguez more at bats, is all I can really come up with. Probably not a solution, but it sure can't hurt.

This wont happen, but similar to what Milwaukee did with Braun a couple weeks ago, I would bat Cutch leadoff to maybe get him going. Just a thought.

Rodriguez has been a breath of fresh air. Maybe play him more.

Yes, but he still has some trade value with a couple of years of control if he plays well.

He's immovable at the end of the year if he's hitting around .220 with less than 20 walks. And I'm curious where his defensive metrics will be later in the summer.

Explain to me how 3 extra inning one rum games makes anyone "head and shoulders" above anyone. Marginally better than maybe. More of a killer instinct maybe. but head and shoulders better? maybe i define that a bit differently.

Close games mean nothing. I don't care if its 8 - 1 or a 2 -1 loss. A loss is still a loss. This Cardinals know how to win - we are still in the developmental stage. When we can win the division than I will feel much better - but I just dont see that happening this year. Hope Im wrong.