re: Some baseball lineups you'd like to see

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I’d like to see an All-Freshman lineup; start doing it in midweek games and then use it as a contrast to the W/E games; then, start the best......

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Only issue I have with that is you have guys like Dugas, Doughty, Arnold, and Milazzo who because of the shortened season last year need at bats to get more comfortable as well.

Beloso is your only starter that has a full season of starters reps under his belt.

I am also curious to know why his playing time has diminished since last year.

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I am also curious to know why his playing time has diminished since last year.

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He’s been passed up.

He was a raw prospect coming in and the majority of the time, that he hasn’t been hurt, he’s spent with the football team.

Combine that with arguably the best freshman class in school history and Hampton becomes a non-priority for baseball real quick.

I’d say he was a little more than a raw prospect coming out of HS. He was on the same draft status as Crews. You let a guy with that skill/athleticism get comfortable at the plate and the sky is the limit.

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It remains to be seen how good Travinski is behind the plate. I just think we should give him and Wyeth a shot back there.

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They'll get their shots in relief of Milazzo. Fans place way too much emphasis on a catcher's offensive productivity. Milazzo completely controls the running game, and does a very good job managing our pitchers. Some have complained about him framing pitches, but that hasn't been apparent to me.

If we look at the math: Assume Milazzo keeps hitting 150 and Travinski can manage 300. This is a best case comparison for Travinski. At the back of the lineup, this would result in less than 1 hit per game - about 0.65 hits per game. If one base runner, that Milazzo would have kept at first, can steal second on Travinski, that completely negates his offensive advantage. When you include things like passed balls it might be even worse.

We should play our best defensive catcher. Only take him out to rest him, or if we are trailing going into late innings and he is about to bat. The only exception to that would be if the second string guy was almost just as good behind the plate.

You’re assuming Hampton is not getting these opportunities in practice. Fact of the matter is, regardless of how high his ceiling may be, Hampton is behind every other player on the roster because he can’t devote the full year to the baseball team. All of these guys were hitting and fielding throughout the fall; Hampton was playing football.

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I don’t mind playing him against lefties this weekend to see how he does. If you want to be an everyday starter you have to be able to hit both.

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This, plus all our other OF options are lefties anyways - Safford, Sanford and Drost all bat from left side, so somebody is going to be a lefty at the plate between them.

That is unless he pulls a real Mainieri and starts Bianco or Hampton on us.

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The problem with all of this is we're conjecturing based on extremely small sample sizes. Dugas batted well the last week, but he might be back at .150 soon

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I don't at all disagree with you here. And I'm not even arguing to take Beloso out the lineup. Just don't get the idea of having him in the 4 hole at this point. With his early OBP success and lack of exhibited power, he'd better suited to either be a top of the order guy (2 hole) or to be in the 6-7 slots.

But going off the limited picture, just to back it up more, even in the shortened season last year, Dugas had a Slg of .607 and an OPS of 1.019, while Beloso was .453 and .806 respectively.

So I'm just arguing that I would not have Beloso in the cleanup spot, a traditional slugging part of the order, over someone like Dugas.

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There was a reason he was offered 1mil+ coming out of high school. If you give a guy with his talent the opportunities needed he will figure it out and be a very productive player.

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Because he was a raw talent that had never focused on just one sport and has an extremely high ceiling. He is still the same exact guy as a baseball prospect two years later. He will be drafted again when he is able to be.

Who are you taking at bats away from to get him at bats? Your options are Beloso your most experienced hitter in the roster, Crews a future top 5 pick, Dugas who has been hitting the last two games and has the biggest hit of the season so far, Drost who has gotten a hit in every one of his at bats so far including a homerun, Sanford has looked pretty comfortable at the plate in his at bats.