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Post by moonstone2 on Jul 18, 2014 15:53:22 GMT -5
I don't think he is. Jmei had some good statistical analysis on his time at AAA, yes I just said that, and it seems to reflect how he has done in the majors.
I would agree that he is still currently a good player and yes he could bounce back. But I don't see how you can overlook a now three or four season decline in power. If this continues it will likely affect other parts of his offensive game and he won't be a 4-5 win player in 2016.
When a player like this shows this sort of decline you at least have to have a backup plan.
It's hard to see how he does that in LF or RF considering that he doesn't have a lot of power and doesn't have a lot of experience in the OF. He can't even win a regular OF job now. Yes I know fan boys Tony Gwynn was a HOF corner OF who didn't hit for power. But I don't think it's realistic to expect Betts to hit .350+
But in all seriousness putting Betts in AAA gives you another year to have the JBJ situation sort itself out and to see if Pedroia's decline continues to the point where something has to be done. Even if Betts spent the whole year in AAA next year, which he probably wouldn't, he'd still be 23 in 2016. The mentality of some members of the front office who HAVE to see see these players in the majors NOW NOW NOW, is going to kill the team.
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Post by mgoetze on Jul 18, 2014 16:22:05 GMT -5
Guys, of course there is a logjam. How else do you explain Steven Wright still wasting away in AAA?
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Post by ctfisher on Jul 18, 2014 16:44:41 GMT -5
It's hard to see how he does that in LF or RF considering that he doesn't have a lot of power and doesn't have a lot of experience in the OF. He can't even win a regular OF job now. Yes I know fan boys Tony Gwynn was a HOF corner OF who didn't hit for power. But I don't think it's realistic to expect Betts to hit .350+ He's been slugging better than .500 for a full season and a half, he hit 15 homers last year, had 8 in the minors, and has showed the ability to make consistent hard contact and drive the ball. He's not a prototypical power hitting corner outfielder, but I don't think its unreasonable to expect 15-20 homers out of him at his peak, and when you combine that with a .300ish average, a bunch of walks, maybe 30 steals, plus extra base hits, it doesn't really matter. Victorino put up 5.6 fWar last year in 122 games-sure a lot of it was defensive value, which Betts probably won't quite match, but might approach, but he hit .294/.351/.451. I think Mookie could do something like that- that's a lot of offensive value, and it wouldn't require him hitting anything like .350 |
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Jul 18, 2014 21:28:18 GMT -5
Getting to Cecchini's struggles, I'm not going to go look through to try and find players who've struggled in Triple-A and then succeeded, but I think it's worth noting how he's struggled in Triple-A:
He was actually hitting pretty well to start the season: to pick an arbitrary point, he was at .307/.393/.396 on May 7. He's .225/.292/.298 since. (and note: he hasn't played since July 9 since a play at the plate in which his shoulder popped out and back in. He's day-to-day.)
However, based on seeing him and my understanding of what was going on, I think two things happened:
1) the fact that he wasn't fielding well may have gotten in his head a bit: Garin's a smart guy, and he knew, even without Farrell basically coming out and saying it, that he needed to improve his defense if he wanted to make the jump to the bigs. He was working extra with Bruce Crabbe - who, frankly, may have been given a job in Pawtucket for the sole purpose of working with Cecchini on his defense - and spoke like someone who was aware of what the book was on him. There can come a point where you try to do too much, and I wonder if it was getting in his head. Add in the move to left field in late June, and there's a lot going on there.
2) I think he started trying too hard to hit for power. He knew that was the other hole in his game. Guys get close and begin trying to overcompensate for what they don't do compared to what they do well. Travis Shaw has said that he tried to do this last year, and that matches with the scouting - he was trying to yank everything. Not sure if Ian wrote this, said it on the podcast, or just told me in conversation, but I think I remember him saying that Cecchini was doing about the same thing - trying to yank everything pull-side. If he's trying to hit home runs, then he's getting out of his game.
It wouldn't surprise me if the Sox used this injury to get Cecchini a bit of a longer break, get some work in the cage, and get back to basics, especially with Middlebrooks in town needing reps at third (they're not going to move Cecchini to LF full time yet I don't think). I'm interested to see how he comes out of this break. I'm not saying that there's nothing at all to be worried about - the power and fielding questions are still there - but I think the hit tool is likely going to come back.
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Post by jimed14 on Jul 18, 2014 21:43:09 GMT -5
That K-rate has to be cut in half for him to be legit.
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Post by larrycook on Jul 18, 2014 23:15:27 GMT -5
Asurje finally promoted to Salem. Was gragnani.blocking his parh?
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