From John Fay:
The signing of Fred Lewis seemed to indicate that the Reds were considering a platoon in left field.
Dusty Baker shot that notion down. Jonny Gomes is his left fielder.
“I never said that,†Baker said. “Gomes deserves to play most of the time. Everybody plays on my team. There will be times when Jonny’s not going to play. I explained that to him. That’s right now. Come July, August, who know? He’s way ahead of pace timing-wise, body-wise, quickness. This guy worked hard in the wintertime.”
As Lance said on his blog, if Lewis is not in the mix for LF and leading off, why sign him for $900K?
Gomes (2010) .266/.327/.431, 104 OPS+, with bad defense and only one really good month (May) last year and he is “Dusty’s guy”? Why?
Let’s look at the other likely options:
Lewis (2010) .262/.332/.414, 103 OPS+, with mediocre defense from what I’ve heard
Heisey (2010) .254/.324/.433, 103 OPS+, with outstanding defense and is 4 years younger than other two players.
I’m not saying either one of these guys is great, but Dusty’s statement makes absolutely no sense to me at all. Can someone explain Dusty’s thinking to me? Am I overreacting to the thoughts of another year of bad defense and hacking offense from our LFer?