Quote Originally Posted by Matty Dispatch View Post
But having Tucker as a lefty and Bautista on the bench gives you power from both sides. I'd keep Culberson because he can play every infield position and release Flahrty (assuming he's going to return to his career .221 average). Markakis, Inciarte and Acuna are just going to have to play every day. And I'm sure Acuna could play CF if need be and Tucker a corner OF position as well as Buatista.
There is a shift that must happen in the way teams view players like Flaherty. Instead of looking at him and saying, 'Wow, he's batting .300+, we need to keep him in the lineup while he's hitting this well,' we need to look at him and say, 'Wow, we got 21 games of .300+ out of Ryan Flaherty, how fortunate we are!' and stop playing him before we get the cold spell that brings him back down to career norms. If you wait until he falls back to where he's been, then you got nothing beneficial out of him. You just got more games of a normal Ryan Flaherty instead of just the good stuff.

Hopefully we're shifting in the way we view that, but we'll just have to see.