Jesse Rubinoff

He's still an excellent, excellent player.

He's an excellent player, but he still has to hit for him.

The two things could be true at the same time.

Yeah, you're thinking about ways that you can make the lineup that much more dangerous.

And part of the reason that we had the conversation about Okamoto in the cleanup spot today and why so many fans are confused about moves like that is because you're trying to find guys around Vladdy

that can actually do damage.

And Addison Barger coming into this season, you look at the bat speed, you look at the power, you look at the balls he hit in the playoffs, like this dude is eventually going to mash.

And he's one of the guys that if you can surround Vladdy with an Okamoto and a Barger swinging a hot bat,

man, does that make this team that much more dangerous?

So if he comes back, you'd like to see him perform a little bit better than he did before he went down.

But I mean, all signs that we've seen over the last year, year plus of Addison Barger, he's got all of the tools.

It's just a matter of putting it together.

Every single metric that you can look at with Barger from the 2024 season to the 2025 season, he broke out.

And there were many people who watched him during the playoffs, smart baseball people who said that Addison Barger, this guy is going to be a star.

So can't wait to see him back with the big club.

Thanks, bud.

Well, it's really, really nice to see the offense coming around like that.

It's been a slow start to the season, obviously, and it's funny in a 162-game season how there are so many times where you focus in on different elements of

of a baseball team.

You focus on the pitching when it's not going well.