I know the W’s are languishing in 9th or 10th place, out of the cellar only by the mercy of other teams. But my dream hasn’t died. In fact, I’ve gotten a new vision.
Look at my 2019 first round pick Luis Urias’ batting line right now: 46 AB, 18 h, 2 2b, 2 3b, 7 hr, 5 walks, 1 hbp, .391, .462, .978, 1.440.
Who does that remind you of? Dan Vogelbach, of course (currently in a slump at .310, .457, .732, 1.189 — which Baseball Reference says leads the American League in both slugging and OPS).
Sure, Urias’ numbers are in AAA, and padded by a wild weekend in Las Vegas. But they’re also better than the best hitter in the American League! You can adjust them down quite a way and still have something that looks like Dan Vogelbach as a skilled middle infielder. What could be more inspirational than that!?
And you know what, there’s another player on the W’s who should look more like Dan Vogelbach. He blocked Vogelbach in Chicago for a couple of years, because they seemed so similar and Vogey seemed to be the lesser of the two. Yes we are talking about Kyle Schwarber. Right now Schwarbs is only batting .238, .299, .400. But in the 2015 and 2016 postseasons, Schwarber hit a combined .364, .451, .727, 1.278. Very Vogel-like. There is no reason he can’t do it again now, in the easier regular season.
So that’s 1b, ss, and lf. And there’s also right field, where Eloy roams (on my team). He’s more highly touted than anyone we’ve mentioned so far. Pretty soon, when his ankle heals, he should start ripping for a 1.300 or 1.400 OPS.
And what about Lewis Brinson? Isn’t he supposed to be a stud, too, hyped way more than Vogelbach? I traded Christian Yelich to get Brinson. Yelich is batting .353, .460, .804, 1.204 right now. Surely if they were traded for each other Yelich and Brinson must be roughly equal, so Brinson will start belting them very soon.
Now the whole outfield is full of Vogelbachs, one of whom can run.
Behind the plate Willson Contreras is already purring along at .276, .415, .618, 1.033. That’s an even .100 better than Edgar Martinez’ career OPS, from a guy playing the premium position. We’ll settle for that, calling it as valuable as a Vogelbach.
Max Muncy can play second or third. Last year he OPSed .973. He’s .150 below that right now in 2019, but that only means he’s due to go .150 over it soon, just to balance things out. That 1.123 will fit in ok — a mini Vogelbach at 2b.
And then there’s Rafael Devers at 3b. People were panting over him last year when I plucked him in the first round. He went .311, .377, .578 in the minors at age 20. At age 21 he upped that to .320, .346, .640 in AAA. Right now, at age 22 in the majors, he has his OBP up to .380. Once he gets his slugging percentage back up to its rightful .640, he’ll be inside the frontiers of Vogelbach territory. This is going to happen any minute now!
When Trea Turner gets better, he’ll bring his .357, .400, .857, 1.257 line back into the line-up — and we’ll finally learn why they call it a line-up. Urias will return to second full time, Muncy will swap over to third to improve the defense there, and Devers will start OHing like crazy. Not just OHing, but also OOOHing and AAAhing, like everyone else in Wolverine Stadium as my line-up of Vogelbachs keeps rolling and rolling over other people’s pitchers.
The W’s still won’t be able to pitch. But it won’t matter. The other team will never get to bat until it’s way too late.
Turner and Jimenez are due back in action by about the end of May. The rest of you have that long to build your leads nice and big…