SoxProspects News
|
|
|
|
Legal
Forum Ground Rules
The views expressed by the members of this Forum do not necessarily reflect the views of SoxProspects, LLC.
© 2003-2024 SoxProspects, LLC
|
|
|
|
|
Forum Home | Search | My Profile | Messages | Members | Help |
Welcome Guest. Please Login or Register.
5/6-5/9 Red Sox vs. Twins Series Thread
|
Post by elguapo on May 8, 2013 7:44:04 GMT -5
These struggles were foreseeable. Duh. Lots of young players struggle early in their careers. WMB was a good candidate to be one of those. I'm not sure sending him down would be particularly helpful - he'd just have an opportunity for success against weak pitching. He's supposed to have a good glove, and seems to from what I've seen, so there's value there. Quality time with the hitting coach until he figures it out.
|
|
|
Post by elguapo on May 8, 2013 7:52:27 GMT -5
I'm not so keen on this "sending a messsage" to Doubront line of thinking. I think it's BS. No offense to the folks who think it's likely/possible. But the most likely explanation is that bringing up Webster is the best chance of getting the most quality innings from the staff as a whole, and the Doubront/message stuff is fanciful. "You better get better, or else!" is not exactly an intelligent message to give a young starter.
|
|
|
Post by fenwaythehardway on May 8, 2013 8:02:31 GMT -5
I'm not so keen on this "sending a messsage" to Doubront line of thinking. He'd been solid in his three previous starts before Arlington, and pitched in the seventh in the last two. Then on Friday, he gave up ten singles to the Rangers in Texas. I'm not going to say that it's bad luck, but he gave up a lot of base hits to a good hitting team. I'm not sure a message I want to be sending a 25-year old who is still developing that one poor start in four will have him packing his bags to the bullpen. Are we really sure that this was about "sending a message" to Doubront, or is that just fan projection? Because I think you can build a pretty strong case for doing this just in terms of optimizing the major league pitching staff. As far as development concerns go, it's a little bit less clear cut, but what I will say is that you can't really compair the development tracks of hitters and pitchers. We tend to conflate the two, but it's important to remember that they're essentially playing two entirely different sports. While hitters tend to gradually and predictably improve through massive amounts of repetition, pitchers are much more of a crapshoot. You can look at a decent 22 year old hitter and safely assume he'll be better at age 26. But a 22 year old pitcher? He might get better. Or the arm might have a limited lifespan and his next 500 innings will be the best he ever throws. Obviously with very young pitchers development is important but past a certain point, I think it's better to just focus on getting the best use out of them now rather than dreaming on a future that may never come. Of course, what the bullpen could really use is a quality multi-inning guy, but those aren't allowed to exist anymore. Farrell will inevitably use Doubront in a one inning only roll because doing otherwise would throw the earth out of it's orbit and send it hurtling into the sun (obviously), probably with a smattering of one-batter outings against lefties, thereby making it as difficult as possible to ever bring him back into the rotation and ensuring that the bullpen continues to be overworked...
|
|
|
Post by okin15 on May 8, 2013 8:05:11 GMT -5
[/quote]"You better get better, or else!" is not exactly an intelligent message to give a young starter.[/quote]
Isn't that the message that most demotions send? Also, for a guy who again showed up to ST out of shape, I think it does send a message that you're not going to get paid unless you put in your offseason work.
Edit: added quote edit 2: screw you HTML
|
|
|
Post by James Dunne on May 8, 2013 8:49:46 GMT -5
Are we really sure that this was about "sending a message" to Doubront, or is that just fan projection? Because I think you can build a pretty strong case for doing this just in terms of optimizing the major league pitching staff. As far as development concerns go, it's a little bit less clear cut, but what I will say is that you can't really compair the development tracks of hitters and pitchers. We tend to conflate the two, but it's important to remember that they're essentially playing two entirely different sports. While hitters tend to gradually and predictably improve through massive amounts of repetition, pitchers are much more of a crapshoot. You can look at a decent 22 year old hitter and safely assume he'll be better at age 26. But a 22 year old pitcher? He might get better. Or the arm might have a limited lifespan and his next 500 innings will be the best he ever throws. Obviously with very young pitchers development is important but past a certain point, I think it's better to just focus on getting the best use out of them now rather than dreaming on a future that may never come. Of course, what the bullpen could really use is a quality multi-inning guy, but those aren't allowed to exist anymore. Farrell will inevitably use Doubront in a one inning only roll because doing otherwise would throw the earth out of it's orbit and send it hurtling into the sun (obviously), probably with a smattering of one-batter outings against lefties, thereby making it as difficult as possible to ever bring him back into the rotation and ensuring that the bullpen continues to be overworked... While hitter and pitcher development are different in many respects I think it helps to go into both with a game plan, and neither should be managed either by crisis or through small-sample decisions. I'm guessing (hoping) the Red Sox brass gets together and asks what are Webster's needs in Triple-A, and how does he reach them, etc. I'm extremely skeptical that he's able to reach those goals in 20 innings. In response to some of the previous points, I also don't think we can take for granted that Webster is better than Doubront. Doubront has a 2.85 FIP so far this year, which is a) too small of a sample to read anything of value into it, but b) promising enough from a 25-year old starter in his second full major league season that it's a good idea to keep up his development track. Meanwhile, Webster has been excellent at Pawtucket, but so has Alfredo Aceves. Justin Germano was dominant there last year. Webster is a great deal more talented than Aceves and Germano, but 20 good innings at Triple-A, no matter how well he's scouted, aren't enough for me to think it's a good idea to push a talented potentially valuable pitcher like Doubront to the bullpen.
|
|
|
Post by bluechip on May 8, 2013 9:11:06 GMT -5
These struggles were foreseeable. Duh. Lots of young players struggle early in their careers. WMB was a good candidate to be one of those. I'm not sure sending him down would be particularly helpful - he'd just have an opportunity for success against weak pitching. He's supposed to have a good glove, and seems to from what I've seen, so there's value there. Quality time with the hitting coach until he figures it out. Middlebrooks has a defective approach. This approach has been defective for some time. I do not see how spending time with the hitting coach is going to help him mightily. He reached the majors after a mere 40 games at AAA, and for the first 16 of those game he was atrocious. Middlebrooks has less than one full year at the majors, so its not like we are dealing with a crusty veteran in need of some fine tuning. He needs to make adjustments, but those adjustments should be done at triple A, where he is not killing rallies on a playoff contender.
|
|
|
Post by Guidas on May 8, 2013 9:19:40 GMT -5
Webster is a great deal more talented than Aceves and Germano, but 20 good innings at Triple-A, no matter how well he's scouted, aren't enough for me to think it's a good idea to push a talented potentially valuable pitcher like Doubront to the bullpen.
I agree with this wholeheartedly. And again, if for some reason they are sour on his attitude or whatever, pushing him to the pen dilutes his trade value. If they think his arm strength is down and focus is bad then DL him for "arm fatigue" which has been done before and bring him back after two starts or so by Webster, pronounce him healthy and fixed and then trade him after a couple starts. There are several teams - LAA, LAD, HOU, MINN, SD, CLEVE, MIA, COL, AZ, CWS, NYM, and even NYY and TOR, (not that we'd do business with those teams) immediately come to mind - who would love to have a young, controllable, left-handed starter with his K numbers.
This is starting to remind me of how they dicked around with Bard. And that worked so well.
|
|
|
Post by threeifbaerga on May 8, 2013 9:45:52 GMT -5
Doubront has basically been dreadful since August of last year. Walks are up, hits are up, now velocity is down. I really don't see the harm in skipping some starts and altering his training methods in an attempt to get him back to where he was in the first half of last year. Yes he's striking people out, but that's really all he's doing well any more.
By taking him out of the rotation instead of demoting him you're tell him (and the league) there are simply things we're trying to fix, not that he's lost it and is hurting the club. We'll see how often he is used out of the pen and in what role. Until then we can't really say that they're ruining his development.
And guidas, I really don't see the parallel with Bard. . . other than that they're both pitchers who have struggled as starters in the bigs.
|
|
|
Post by Chris Hatfield on May 8, 2013 10:36:31 GMT -5
RE: Doubront, the "message" narrative absolutely makes sense. But keep in mind the following:
A) The point isn't that it's the ONLY reason they went in this direction. This was obviously an otherwise viable option. The point is that they easily could have brought Aceves up to be the long guy out of the bullpen instead and left Doubront in the rotation (in fact, that was probably the only other realistic scenario given that Bailey is apparently due back soon). Not that it would have been ideal, but let's be honest, a game that Doubront gets into out of the bullpen right now is the kind of game teams put a guy like Aceves into. It's not like Doubront is closing. As Farrell said, this isn't a long-term solution, so it was just odd that they would mess with the rotation like that for a temporary, once-through-the-rotation solution, in my opinion.
B) Look at why he's struggling: his velo is down because his arm speed is down. That's partly a product of conditioning. As I mentioned above, Farrell said on the pregame that they're going to have him do more aggressive long toss between starts to try and build that arm/shoulder strength back up. That's not something they should have to do with him if he kept himself in shape properly in the offseason. And not taking care of his body properly in the offseason has been a problem for him before. When we say a guy came in out of shape, that doesn't necessarily mean he's overweight in the sense a normal person gets out of shape. It need only mean he didn't prepare himself properly in a physical sense for the season.
Sometimes players get tunnel vision and don't realize the situation around them fully. They don't necessarily look at situations like fans do, which can be tough for us to realize. I am reminded of two situations: 1) Bard last year, who was completely taken by surprise when he got sent to the minors, when that was pretty clearly an option to the rest of us when he couldn't throw a strike. He thought he was an MLB pitcher and that was that and has said he was caught off guard, thinking that it was because of that one awful Toronto start. Maybe part of this is what we know to have been poor communication from Bobby V, but still, should he have been that surprised? 2) Andrew Pinckney, the former Sox ML 3B. When he was released in 2008, he did an interview on his way out, presumably with Kevin Thomas, bitching about how the club had promoted Jorge Jimenez to play over him, then cut him. The link is dead, but thankfully Ian Theodoridis (TempleUSox) preserved this quote in a SOSH thread: "It's really insulting," Pinckney said by phone Friday night. "I've never been more (ticked) off in my life. (To be replaced by) a kid who was in Lowell last year and spent a heartbeat in A-ball, I'm appalled. I'm not doing bad. ... People are telling me that it's a business and I can't take it personally. But I do take it personally." Maybe Ian or someone else can help me recall, but I think he mistakenly thought Jimenez was an international signee too, and some other regrettable stuff, in his anger. Anyway, he'd had a great season in 2005 in Greenville at age 23, actually winning our Offensive Player of the Year award here at the site, but hadn't done jack since. He was a 26-yo 3B in AA with an OBP of .299. Jimenez was 23 and had just hit .352/.421/.479, albeit in Lancaster, over 70 games. Granted, Pinckney was likely cut instead of benched because of his attitude, but again, why was this surprising to him? Because players don't look at these situations like we do.
Cut to Doubront. The "message" here might just be "hey, you're replaceable, take this seriously." Maybe there isn't a message, but to me, it fills in some gaps of why this was the move rather than Aceves. As Mike said on Twitter, why is Aceves still on the roster if he's not being used here?
|
|
|
Post by Chris Hatfield on May 8, 2013 10:53:41 GMT -5
As for Middlebrooks, as some have stated, there's really nothing coming in behind him.
Ciriaco is a guy you use in spots, not a guy you want starting for your team.
Brock Holt is hitting .181 without any XBH in 83 at-bats. He's played his way into being a DFA option, not a call-up option. He started the year at the top of the Pawtucket order but has been in the bottom third of the order since April 20.
Snyder has been hitting very well, but he's only played two games at third base this year. Given that they've played Ryan Dent at third instead of him in 3 of the last 5 since Sutton hit the DL tells me they don't necessarily see him as an option for third base. They acknowledged that they were thin at third during spring training, and things have only gotten worse.
And as mentioned, Sutton is hurt.
Justin Henry is probably the only call-up option. He's hitting well, batting in the top third (he was hitting 3rd, but has been leading off w/ JBJ on the DL), and has some games at third this year. Right now, they've been forced to play him in the outfield thanks to a depleted corps there with Brentz hurt and Hassan, Maier, and Bradley on the DL, but the nice thing is that he has all three options and is fairly versatile.
|
|
|
Post by James Dunne on May 8, 2013 10:56:44 GMT -5
I think we'll have to agree to disagree on the sending a message thing. I don't like the idea of sending a temporary message like this, because it bounces him around and damages his value. I also don't think the Bard and Pinckney situations are applicable here. Bard was pitching so badly that he really couldn't be on the team anymore, while Doubront has had one very poor start, that was very base-hit heavy - he walked only one and didn't give up a homer against a strong Texas team. And Pinckney was a mediocre Double-A player. who, based on that interview, may have had other issues with externalizing his difficulties. It's no secret that professional baseball players and other elite athletes have high opinions of their own skills, and can get tunnel vision about their performance. How an organization deals with things like that is a key to success. If there's a problem with Doubront's attitude, I'd like to think there's a way to deal with it that is less self-defeating.
Agree about Aceves though, of course. If this isn't a situation where you can turn to him, then no such situation exists. It's probably best for both sides if they move on.
|
|
|
Post by awall on May 8, 2013 11:13:07 GMT -5
As for Middlebrooks, as some have stated, there's really nothing coming in behind him. Ciriaco is a guy you use in spots, not a guy you want starting for your team. Brock Holt is hitting .181 without any XBH in 83 at-bats. He's played his way into being a DFA option, not a call-up option. He started the year at the top of the Pawtucket order but has been in the bottom third of the order since April 20. Snyder has been hitting very well, but he's only played two games at third base this year. Given that they've played Ryan Dent at third instead of him in 3 of the last 5 since Sutton hit the DL tells me they don't necessarily see him as an option for third base. They acknowledged that they were thin at third during spring training, and things have only gotten worse. And as mentioned, Sutton is hurt. Justin Henry is probably the only call-up option. He's hitting well, batting in the top third (he was hitting 3rd, but has been leading off w/ JBJ on the DL), and has some games at third this year. Right now, they've been forced to play him in the outfield thanks to a depleted corps there with Brentz hurt and Hassan, Maier, and Bradley on the DL, but the nice thing is that he has all three options and is fairly versatile. Middlebrooks' struggles along with Napoli's success makes it intriguing to think about what the Sox do with the Iglesias/Bogaerts situation. Do they start looking at Bogaerts more seriously as a candidate to move to 3B long term? There doesn't seem to be anyone of great value blocking him from getting experience there at Pawtucket. Speculation about doing that so they could keep Iglesias, with Middlebrooks moving to 1B now has an interesting wrinkle. Just curious what others' thoughts are along these lines. And yes, I know it's early in the year, I am not by any stretch writing off Middlebrooks long term, it just makes for interesting speculation.
|
|
|
Post by Chris Hatfield on May 8, 2013 11:20:36 GMT -5
I think we'll have to agree to disagree on the sending a message thing. I don't like the idea of sending a temporary message like this, because it bounces him around and damages his value. I also don't think the Bard and Pinckney situations are applicable here. Bard was pitching so badly that he really couldn't be on the team anymore, while Doubront has had one very poor start, that was very base-hit heavy - he walked only one and didn't give up a homer against a strong Texas team. And Pinckney was a mediocre Double-A player. who, based on that interview, may have had other issues with externalizing his difficulties. It's no secret that professional baseball players and other elite athletes have high opinions of their own skills, and can get tunnel vision about their performance. How an organization deals with things like that is a key to success. If there's a problem with Doubront's attitude, I'd like to think there's a way to deal with it that is less self-defeating. Agree about Aceves though, of course. If this isn't a situation where you can turn to him, then no such situation exists. It's probably best for both sides if they move on. I guess my point was only that I agree with you about jostling the rotation, and I'm trying to figure out why on earth they did that. This makes sense to me. Reasonable minds can disagree.
|
|
|
Post by Guidas on May 8, 2013 11:34:59 GMT -5
As for Middlebrooks, as some have stated, there's really nothing coming in behind him. Ciriaco is a guy you use in spots, not a guy you want starting for your team. Brock Holt is hitting .181 without any XBH in 83 at-bats. He's played his way into being a DFA option, not a call-up option. He started the year at the top of the Pawtucket order but has been in the bottom third of the order since April 20. Snyder has been hitting very well, but he's only played two games at third base this year. Given that they've played Ryan Dent at third instead of him in 3 of the last 5 since Sutton hit the DL tells me they don't necessarily see him as an option for third base. They acknowledged that they were thin at third during spring training, and things have only gotten worse. And as mentioned, Sutton is hurt. Justin Henry is probably the only call-up option. He's hitting well, batting in the top third (he was hitting 3rd, but has been leading off w/ JBJ on the DL), and has some games at third this year. Right now, they've been forced to play him in the outfield thanks to a depleted corps there with Brentz hurt and Hassan, Maier, and Bradley on the DL, but the nice thing is that he has all three options and is fairly versatile. Middlebrooks' struggles along with Napoli's success makes it intriguing to think about what the Sox do with the Iglesias/Bogaerts situation. Do they start looking at Bogaerts more seriously as a candidate to move to 3B long term? There doesn't seem to be anyone of great value blocking him from getting experience there at Pawtucket. Speculation about doing that so they could keep Iglesias, with Middlebrooks moving to 1B now has an interesting wrinkle. Just curious what others' thoughts are along these lines. And yes, I know it's early in the year, I am not by any stretch writing off Middlebrooks long term, it just makes for interesting speculation. If Cecchini continues his present trajectory - and holding a .370 or better OBP at higher levels will be a distinct challenge for him - Middlebrooks may well be trade bait by 2015 (or sooner).
|
|
|
Post by elguapo on May 8, 2013 12:56:14 GMT -5
Middlebrooks has a defective approach. This approach has been defective for some time. You mean since he was drafted? He's always been a 25% K guy, and he'll be that in the majors when he's doing well. I don't really care about the "killing rallies on a playoff contender" angle. For one thing, this is hockey season. For another, I've never bought the line that "the Sox can't have a rookie learning on the job like every other team" - we're not that special. Other teams have rookies going through the wringer, slumping vets, crappy hitters with no hope of improvement, etc. I wanted to sign Youk or Chavez for 1B/3B - didn't happen, oh well. I'm patient enough to give WMB a full year at least.
|
|
|
Post by bluechip on May 8, 2013 13:21:02 GMT -5
Middlebrooks has a defective approach. This approach has been defective for some time. You mean since he was drafted? He's always been a 25% K guy, and he'll be that in the majors when he's doing well. I don't really care about the "killing rallies on a playoff contender" angle. For one thing, this is hockey season. For another, I've never bought the line that "the Sox can't have a rookie learning on the job like every other team" - we're not that special. Other teams have rookies going through the wringer, slumping vets, crappy hitters with no hope of improvement, etc. I wanted to sign Youk or Chavez for 1B/3B - didn't happen, oh well. I'm patient enough to give WMB a full year at least. Its not just the strikeout rate. It's the fact that he never walks. I thought Dave Kingman (Low OBP, but tons of power) might be a good Middlebrooks comparison, but Kingman had at least had a career walk rate of 8.2%. As far as giving him an entire year? He has had an entire year. He had 2012, where he never walked and struck out far too much. His approach has only gotten worse this season. Why must the team allow him to wallow at the MLB level? It was clearly a mistake to not bring in depth at third base, but it is a bigger mistake to compound that error by continuing to play WMB.
|
|
|
Post by elguapo on May 8, 2013 13:49:58 GMT -5
Its not just the strikeout rate. It's the fact that he never walks. He once had a 7% walk rate in A ball. Other than that... he's been around 5%. Now he's struggling and at 4%. Again, this is not exactly a revelation. If the Sox didn't want to have a low OBP third baseman with poor plate discipline they should have traded him in the offseason. But they presumably believed, and presumably still believe, that he'll be able to manage a passable OBP and a nice SLG to go with a good glove. Majors or AAA ... matter of opinion, who knows.
|
|
|
Post by grandsalami on May 8, 2013 13:55:48 GMT -5
Alex Speier ?@alexspeier5m Farrell on Iglesias: Players' personal goals sometimes don't align w/ team's goals. Alex Speier ?@alexspeier1m Farrell suggested Iglesias feels big lg ready but struggling w/absence of big lg opportunity
|
|
|
Post by fenwaythehardway on May 8, 2013 14:11:51 GMT -5
Its not just the strikeout rate. It's the fact that he never walks. He once had a 7% walk rate in A ball. Other than that... he's been around 5%. Now he's struggling and at 4%. Again, this is not exactly a revelation. If the Sox didn't want to have a low OBP third baseman with poor plate discipline they should have traded him in the offseason. But they presumably believed, and presumably still believe, that he'll be able to manage a passable OBP and a nice SLG to go with a good glove.Majors or AAA ... matter of opinion, who knows. Well they can believe whatever they want, but he's got a .230 (!!!) OBP right now and he LOOKS like a guy who should have a .230 OBP. It's not like he came up, struggled, showed some improvement, etc... he's basically gone backwards since day one to the point where he really doesn't look like an acceptable major leaguer to me. Giving him more major league time has, if anything, made him a WORSE player, not better. And yeah, I understand there's very little in the way of alternatives, but that's a side issue. The point is, Middlebrooks isn't an MLB regular and he's not developing into one at the major league level. He's just not.
|
|
|
Post by dmaineah on May 8, 2013 14:17:12 GMT -5
I think the Red Sox should stay committed to Middlebrooks & Doubront until the All Star Break & by starting Webster tonight shows a commitment to winning tonight.
|
|
|
Post by dmaineah on May 8, 2013 14:43:15 GMT -5
The team has added 2 LHP to bullpen for the final 2 games of this series. Toronto is next. Is the Pitching Staff set up better with this addition for these next 5 games?
I think some players should start taking grounders at 3B; Nava, Carp, Lavarnway
|
|
|
Post by fenwaythehardway on May 8, 2013 14:46:39 GMT -5
While hitter and pitcher development are different in many respects I think it helps to go into both with a game plan, and neither should be managed either by crisis or through small-sample decisions. I'm guessing (hoping) the Red Sox brass gets together and asks what are Webster's needs in Triple-A, and how does he reach them, etc. I'm extremely skeptical that he's able to reach those goals in 20 innings. In response to some of the previous points, I also don't think we can take for granted that Webster is better than Doubront. Doubront has a 2.85 FIP so far this year, which is a) too small of a sample to read anything of value into it, but b) promising enough from a 25-year old starter in his second full major league season that it's a good idea to keep up his development track. Meanwhile, Webster has been excellent at Pawtucket, but so has Alfredo Aceves. Justin Germano was dominant there last year. Webster is a great deal more talented than Aceves and Germano, but 20 good innings at Triple-A, no matter how well he's scouted, aren't enough for me to think it's a good idea to push a talented potentially valuable pitcher like Doubront to the bullpen. With regards to Doubront, his FIP is propped up by an unsustainably low HR rate, he's walking a ton of guys, and although he's got a high K rate in a small sample his swinging strike rate is actually down significantly this year. Oh yeah, and his fastball velo is down about two and a half MPH from last year. And again, you can dream all you want on a 25 year old pitcher but to me that honestly seems like a warmed over "Andrew Miller is the new Randy Johnson" argument. Yes you can find examples of guys who matured later in their careers, but the reality is that nearly all of these guys are more or less finished products at 25. And it's not like regression is out of the question just because a guy is 25; for every Johnson or Cliff Lee, there's a boatload of Zitos and Willises and Lincecums and Mulders who only went backwards after their early 20s. Thinking that Doubront is ever going to be something significantly better than what he is now is basically just wish-casting. In fact if there's anything that's really likely to bost his value, it's moving out of the rotation. If you want to find guy who became great pitchers after floundering as starters in their early 20s, that list is going to mostly be guys who moved to the 'pen. As far as Webster goes, I really don't care how much he's pitched at AAA so far. I mean, as far as we know, the Red Sox thought he was MLB ready in spring training and just wanted to give Doubront one last shot. Not saying that the Red Sox are necessarily making the right decision here but the fact that he's only got 20 AAA innings seems like an awfully arbitrary reason to say they're not.
|
|
|
Post by hammerhead on May 8, 2013 16:30:00 GMT -5
He once had a 7% walk rate in A ball. Other than that... he's been around 5%. Now he's struggling and at 4%. Again, this is not exactly a revelation. If the Sox didn't want to have a low OBP third baseman with poor plate discipline they should have traded him in the offseason. But they presumably believed, and presumably still believe, that he'll be able to manage a passable OBP and a nice SLG to go with a good glove.Majors or AAA ... matter of opinion, who knows. Well they can believe whatever they want, but he's got a .230 (!!!) OBP right now and he LOOKS like a guy who should have a .230 OBP. It's not like he came up, struggled, showed some improvement, etc... he's basically gone backwards since day one to the point where he really doesn't look like an acceptable major leaguer to me. Giving him more major league time has, if anything, made him a WORSE player, not better. And yeah, I understand there's very little in the way of alternatives, but that's a side issue. The point is, Middlebrooks isn't an MLB regular and he's not developing into one at the major league level. He's just not. This is a huge overstatement. Middlebrooks has shown some flashes, he just hasn't been able to put together an extended streak.... and he is a very streaky hitter. The guy is never gonna walk a bunch, he's hitting for power even in the slump, he just needs to cut the K's and sprinkle in a bunch of singles and he's golden. To say he isn't a major leaguer at this point is premature and an exaggeration.
|
|
|
Post by hammerhead on May 8, 2013 16:30:28 GMT -5
He once had a 7% walk rate in A ball. Other than that... he's been around 5%. Now he's struggling and at 4%. Again, this is not exactly a revelation. If the Sox didn't want to have a low OBP third baseman with poor plate discipline they should have traded him in the offseason. But they presumably believed, and presumably still believe, that he'll be able to manage a passable OBP and a nice SLG to go with a good glove.Majors or AAA ... matter of opinion, who knows. Well they can believe whatever they want, but he's got a .230 (!!!) OBP right now and he LOOKS like a guy who should have a .230 OBP. It's not like he came up, struggled, showed some improvement, etc... he's basically gone backwards since day one to the point where he really doesn't look like an acceptable major leaguer to me. Giving him more major league time has, if anything, made him a WORSE player, not better. And yeah, I understand there's very little in the way of alternatives, but that's a side issue. The point is, Middlebrooks isn't an MLB regular and he's not developing into one at the major league level. He's just not. This is a huge overstatement. Middlebrooks has shown some flashes, he just hasn't been able to put together an extended streak.... and he is a very streaky hitter. The guy is never gonna walk a bunch, he's hitting for power even in the slump, he just needs to cut the K's and sprinkle in a bunch of singles and he's golden. To say he isn't a major leaguer at this point is premature and an exaggeration.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 8, 2013 18:04:26 GMT -5
So Rookie players struggle? Posters need to chill on WMB. Also he isn't going to be a walk guy, he ain't youk, then again that isn't the only approach to be a MLB player.
|
|
|