Figgins and Cust to Lose Playing Time

By Blaidd Drwg

A quick question: Which of these fine hitters would you want in your lineup?

It would be pretty easy to eliminate Player C from this list – the OBP is awful, despite having one of the “better” slugging percentages on the list (and that is still pretty lousy). Player B wouldn’t be the worst choice and player E does not have enough plate appearances to make a call on. Players A and D would be the logical choices, but I would be cautious of Player D – small sample size. I have also intentionally left out Batting Average. You might say that Player A is the no-brainer when I add that he has 44 walks in those 245 PA and Player D only has 3 in 52 PA.

The list of players (in order of appearance): Jack Cust, Milton Bradley, Carlos Peguero, Greg Halman and Mike Carp.

The Mariners recently announced that Cust and Chone Figgins would see reduced playing time. It is funn, because it is hard to lose playing time when you are only in the lineup maybe twice a week anyway. I can’t make the argument for that being a bad thing for Figgins, but it does not make any sense to me to reduce Cust’s playing time if you are trying to win.

His power numbers are way down this season, but Cust has the highest OBP on the team, leads the team in walks (one ahead of Justin Smoak, who has roughly 100 more PA) and really is better than his .215 BA. Besides, the only Mariner with more than 100 PA and a higher OPS+ is Smoak. Adam Kennedy figures to take the bulk of the AB from Cust at this point.

Considering Bradley is gone, Carp is back in Tacoma and the Halman/Peguero platoon should produce somewhere around 20 walks this season and, if we are lucky, hit over .220, why not play Cust on a regular basis?

It seems to me that the team is adopting a “let’s play the kids and if we win, great, if not, we will call it a rebuilding year” mentality, which is fine, but let Jack Cust go to someplace where he can produce.