re: Examining the three in-season moves Paul Mainieri made — and the one he didn’t

We've had 8 different players bat 5th... 9 bat 6th. It's been a struggle.


Going back to the OP. Let's actually examine each move:

1) Zach Watson to CF

- He was definitely NOT on March 9th... there wasn't a game that day.
- This was the Wichita St series, Game 2. In game 1, Breaux was put in CF and Duplantis was moved to LF because of his arm. They tried putting him back in CF, but it's still just too much of a liability out there. Guys were tagging from 2nd to 3rd in balls in the left center.
- Watson was 3-4 in the game with 4 RBI. Damn good start and that earned him the start the next day going 1-3. He had multiple hit games in his next 3 starts before going 0-3 in game 2 vs Georgia.
- So Breaux becomes an afterthought and Beau is competing solely for DH after this because Watson's average never dips below 0.300 bottoming out at 0.306 during the A&M series.

2) Hess to Pen

- This was announced right before the UGA series and most people called it. PM wanted his best available for the SEC and that no longer included Norman (TJ) or Newman (Back). I'd call this one "you do it because you have to". I think if we still had Norman and Newman and one of these 3 relievers had a good year (Reynolds, Bain, Kiel), Hess would still be getting work as a 4th starter.

3/4) Coomes to 1B; Pap stays at C

- I'm lumping these together because I can't talk about Coomes without talking about where we originally had him and why. Also, these two situations are very similar yet took opposite turns.
- PM did everything he could to keep both Pap and Slaughter in the lineup. One turned it around; the other didn't. At the same time pap was finding his swing and proving to everyone he can be the defensive catcher we thought he could be, Slaughter was falling apart at the plate. And while his defense at 1B was beautiful to see, it's not a premium position for defense. We had to find someone who could hit.
- Pap was getting so "bad" at one point that PM was willing to start Romero with a torn rotator. Think about that for a second...
- Coomes started to break out during the Arkansas series and that's when Slaughter lost it. Coomes came in for Pap and was 2-2 in Game 2 (with some huge ABs), 1-4 in game 3 while Slaughter was 1-11 in the series starting all 3 games. The next weekend vs Ole Miss, Coomes was at 1B and basically held on to the spot from there. Although, again, PM tried to get Slaughter involved multiple times.
- Ole Miss was also when Pap's BA bottomed out at 0.197... In the second half of the SEC (15 games), Pap was only 0-fer in 3 of them. He was 15-45 with 17 walks in the last 5 series.