(670 The Score) While Twitter can be a complete nightmare sometimes, it also can be spectacular when smart people engage publicly on interesting topics, and actually carry out the kind of substantive discussion that both informs and entertains, fulfilling a vision for social media that now seems quaintly utopian.
So it was Wednesday, however, when baseball analysts Joe Sheehan and Matthew Trueblood went back and forth on the platform debating the relative quality of outfielders Albert Almora and Kyle Schwarber and the way the Cubs have chosen to deploy them.
Sheehan of Sports Illustrated and Baseball America has long felt that Almora is the better player of the two and that his opportunity for development has been stunted by how married the Cubs have been to Schwarber. Trueblood of Baseball Prospectus disagrees with this premise, and we had the pleasure of watching these two giant baseball brains go at it in as professional and respectful a manner as we'd expect.
Here's a sampling of the discussion, one that drew in some other notables in various threads.
You know what helps plate discipline? Knowing you don't have to get two hits a night just to play the next day. https://t.co/tZ4xuDRN2T
— Joe Sheehan (@joe_sheehan) April 24, 2019So let's allow another intelligent baseball guy have his say, as Theo Epstein addressed the struggles of the two players when he appeared on the Bernstein and McKnight Show on 670 The Score on Thursday. He recognized that both need the chance to work through their offensive downturns, and explained that there's room for everyone right now in the service of team goals.
"Development at the major-league level is a real challenge," Epstein said. "In some situations, you can turn a player loose to play every single day and get 650 plate appearances and let them sort of play their way through struggles and develop that way. In our situation, we're trying to win and finish players' development at the same time, and the winning aspect comes first."
Epstein noted that no team in MLB has won more games than the Cubs since 2015, and he has trusted his manager to make all the parts fit.
"There are going to be times where you'd like -- in a vacuum -- to put a player out there every single day," Epstein said. "But if you have more than one player you're trying to develop and a lot of players who need playing time and you can't do that, your first loyalty has to be to winning. The track record shows Joe [Maddon> has done an outstanding job of winning while developing."
And the message to be received by anyone arguing about a zero-sum comparison of these two players is simple -- one is not standing in the way of the other.
"These guys are getting significant opportunities," Epstein said. "If you look back at the amount of plate appearances last year, it's not like anyone is being pigeonholed into a 150 or 200 plate appearance role, a niche role. These guys all have core roles on the team and they're ending up with close to 500 plate appearances. That's more than enough for development."
Dan Bernstein is a co-host of 670 The Score's Bernstein & McKnight Show in middays. You can follow him on Twitter @dan_bernstein.
