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Actually, he seems bright enough to me, just liked the word play.
A lot of talk of trading him for pitching. Let's examine.
At this point in his career (turning 27 in a few weeks, nearly 1200 MLB at-bats) we know who he is, what he can do, what he can't.
Knowing that is a plus, but a minus too, because other teams know what we know.
So that puts a cap on the quality of pitching you're going to get back for him. Fairly limited.
As stated elsewhere. I strongly oppose trading position players for pitchers, generally, across the board. But in Dom's case, more so. And in his present situation, especially.
His present case being “struggling.” That generally understates the return you'll get for him.
With his track record established as it is now, we know that “struggling” doesn't matter much in the long haul. A reasonable expectation is that he'll start hitting soon. No reason to think otherwise.
Being a lefty, he's limited in the positions he's capable of playing, and practically he's limited even more to LF and IB, which he's played just about equally in the bigs.
As long as Alonso remains healthy, Dom's mostly a LFer. Given the Mets who can do a good job in LF (Canha, and McNeil) that makes him a LFer, DH, and pinch hitter. Low OBP guy, decent SLG guy—you can live with that for a month or two if injuries hit, either at 1B or LF.
He also has one advantage over most left-handed OF-IB guys—he seems to have a reverse platoon thing. So far, and it's far enough to begin to draw conclusions about his capacities, that means he can play everyday if you need him to.
So he's of limited value, but we know what those limits are. And we need a good backup LF-1Ber who can DH respectably and PH.
Everybody does, but you're not going to get a starting pitcher back for him who's a hair better than your best AAA pitcher.
So I say stop the chatter about trading him for a starting pitcher.
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