I love the OF acquisitions.

by MattG, Friday, December 19, 2014, 10:02 (3407 days ago) @ Jay

Three undervalued assets. There are question marks around each, but if it clicks, those bats make them a contender.

Matt Kemp has arthritic hips (sort of) and didn't get along with Don Mattingly and is kind of a crappy CF.

He was also, for the last 8 weeks of the season, literally the best hitter in either league. So he has that going for him.

Justin Upton is just a trancendent talent. He moves differently than other baseball players.

He never *quite* seems to put it together for a full season of "as good as he can be", but this is a guy who posted a 141 OPS+ as a 23 year old, and then a 132 OPS+ last year at 26, with 29 HR and 102 RBI.

He's a Hall-of-Fame level talent, who has posted a very plausible HOF-level resume through age 26. I can't believe ATL bailed on him.

Wil Myers was the consensus #1 prospect in baseball for KC, was flipped for James Shields, turned out to be everything that was advertised - and then broke his wrist.

That SUCKS for power hitters. Especially small ones who rely on their wrists to build power. To cite 2 Cubs, Derrek Lee was never *remotely* the same player after breaking his wrist in May 2006.

Nor was Ryne Sandberg, who broke his wrist on the first pitch of spring training in 1993. Coming off of seasons of 30, 40, 26 and 26 HR, he managed a total of 14 in the next TWO YEARS and then retired. (After a year and a half off, he hit 25 again in 1996.)

But Wil Myers is still very, very young! There's time for him to re-gain the power stroke while still under team cost-control.

This could go very, very well.

And the worst case isn't even THAT bad. Upton's going to hit. Kemp MAY fall apart, but so what? Myers will - worst case - be a cost-controlled somewhat-above-average MLB player.