Some Off Day Thoughts

Quick hit stream of consciousness stuff today:

- Fredi's probably firmly on the hot-seat now, but he shouldn't be. He didn't construct the bullpen, he didn't make his outfielders become historically unproductive - they have fewer combined home-runs (2) than Josh Johnson has RBI (4) - and he certainly didn't ask for post season expectations with a $40 million-ish payroll. Does he deserve some heat for bad bullpen management? Absolutely, but you can't demand champagne on a beer budget.

- The best thing the Marlins can do for the bullpen is give Taylor Tankersley another shot. There's a real need for a lefty reliever with Meyer on the shelf and Tank is putting up encouraging K numbers in AAA (11 in 11.2 innings pitched). Even more encouraging, 9 of those K's are against righties. He may never be worth the 1st round pick the Marlins invested in him, but if you get a strikeout reliever, especially a left-handed one, you have a desirable piece in the bullpen.

- Coghlan needs a helping hand. It's May 3rd and he still doesn't have an extra base hit, and he's racking up an alarming number of strikeouts (23 already after only 77 a year ago). There are some encouraging signs: his BABIP is incredibly low for a left-handed batter (.258) and he's still hitting a fair amount of line drives (22% a year ago to 24% now). Looking at that, eventually, you figure "something" gives and he turns it around. Still, this is quickly becoming more than a sophomore slump.

- Gaby Sanchez is a lot better than I thought he'd be. He's killing the ball right now and is nearly 1:1 BB:K. The defense is still a problem, and I think he profiles more as a DH than a National League first baseman, but he's really stepping up huge when I thought he'd do nothing more than keep first base warm for Logan Morrison.

- Mike Stanton needs a promotion. He hit his 13th homer today at AA; his on-base percentage is over .500, his slugging percentage is over .800. Quite simply, he's putting on a early 00's Barry Bonds type performance. There's nothing left for him to do at AA.