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The Cardinals are confusing everybody by playing Matt Adams in left field
Sunday’s Say Hey, Baseball can’t figure out why a first baseman is playing left field. Plus, the Dodgers unveiled a beautiful new statue honoring Jackie Robinson.
Photo by Dilip Vishwanat/Getty Images
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We’re still in the early stages of the season, but we’re already seeing some weird stuff go on around baseball. The Blue Jays are seven games under .500. The Reds and Twins are currently both a few games above .500. Meanwhile, the Cardinals are 3-8, and for some reason they’re still playing Matt Adams in left field.
Adams is a first baseman and a pretty decent one, at that. However, St. Louis has had Adams in left field and nobody really knows why. Dave Cameron of FanGraphs wrote at length about the experiment, and it’s clear that it doesn’t make sense to him. Our friends over at Viva El Birdos are just as confused about the entire thing.
People who write about baseball aren’t the only ones who are confounded about this decision, either. Tommy Pham caught wind of the FanGraphs article on Twitter and gave it a like. Retweets may not equal endorsements in the land of Twitter, but likes certainly speak for themselves.
What should also speak for itself is the result of the Adams experiment. Although you should normally not take defensive metrics too seriously during the early stages of the season, the numbers seem to indicate that putting a first baseman in left field is not going to be beneficial for either the player or the team as a whole. Also, as the FanGraphs article showed, Adams is failing the eye test. It’s just all bad right now, and you have to wonder how long St. Louis will be willing to keep this going.
There are times when players switching positions is beneficial for everybody involved, but that’s clearly not the case here. Playing Adams in left field isn’t the sole reason why the Cardinals are off to slow start, but this idea definitely isn’t working well in theory or in practice.
- It may not be wise to draw long-term conclusions from the first week of the season, but it’s fun to try to at least figure out what it all means. That’s what Beyond the Box Score tried to do with this article.
- The Astros may have beaten the A’s on Saturday, but they went through some crazy stuff to get the win -- including having to forfeit the DH position by the time the ninth inning rolled around!
- The Dodgers unveiled a beautiful commemorative statue of Jackie Robinson, and True Blue LA has video of the grand unveiling.
- The aforementioned Astros/A’s game was really weird. The Astros won it 10-6, despite not even getting a run until the seventh inning.
- We’ve talked about this before, but Bluebird Banter made it clear -- the Blue Jays are in serious trouble right now.
- The Tigers have a chance at being good, but the crew at Bless You Boys believes that they may have to get rid of Francisco Rodriguez to do so.
- Chris Sale made the start for the Red Sox on Saturday, and apparently he was an absolute dazzler on the mound.
- Rob Manfred was in the house for the official opening of SunTrust Park, and he’s a fan of the Braves’ new stadium.
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