I love his defense, but he is brutal at the plate. How much longer does this guy get before a change needs to be made?

He's a number 9 hitter. They're scoring runs without his bat. Everything's fine. Back away from the cliff.

We scored 7 runs last night, we lost because our middle relief is amazingly bad right now....not sure how this relates.

Brian had a good week last week. Let's give him a chance to build on that before we talk about replacing him.

I think he is improving. Slowly, but he looks better at the plate.

I love his defense, but he is brutal at the plate. How much longer does this guy get before a change needs to be made?

Of the top 5 things that bother me about the Sox this year, he doesn't even make the list.

 

My list in no particular order:

 

- Boone Logan's suckiness

- Jon Garland's woes

- Ross Gload's uselessness for this team

- Jenk's shaky outings

- The incomplete green seats

He may not be bring much to the plate, but how many runs has he kept off the board with his play in center? If we stuck with Ventura and Crede just to keep their gloves around, why wouldn't we stick it out with BA?

He may not be bring much to the plate, but how many runs has he kept off the board with his play in center? If we stuck with Ventura and Crede just to keep their gloves around, why wouldn't we stick it out with BA?

 

The biggest difference that I can think of was that those teams with struggling Ventura/Crede weren't expected to compete for the World Series title.

Personally, if the rest of the lineup holds up their end of the bargain, and BA continues to play stellar defense, I could deal with him hitting under the Mendoza line for the rest of the season.

Personally, if the rest of the lineup holds up their end of the bargain, and BA continues to play stellar defense, I could deal with him hitting under the Mendoza line for the rest of the season.

 

Not a chance that Ozzie/KW will continue to play him if he's hitting under .200 all season.

I don't know what the the other options are with BA. Isn't Sweeney hurt? And Mackowiak isn't an everyday player, plus it limits your depth to play him all the time. I don't mind a few more off days for BA but there's really nothing more the Sox can do right now, IMO.

Not a chance that Ozzie/KW will continue to play him if he's hitting under .200 all season.

If we are comfortably 3-5 games in first place throughout the year I can see them letting him continue to work through his struggles.

If we are comfortably 3-5 games in first place throughout the year I can see them letting him continue to work through his struggles.

 

Players don't just hit below .200 in the majors anymore, and remain a full-time starter. Ozzie has already been discussing, as of a few weeks ago, how Anderson has to start having better at-bats in order to keep his starting spot. He did have some better at-bats over the last few weeks. However, if he continues to hit in the .170s for another 30 or 40 games, I'm confident in saying that a change will be made in CF for THIS season.

Players don't just hit below .200 in the majors anymore, and remain a full-time starter. Ozzie has already been discussing, as of a few weeks ago, how Anderson has to start having better at-bats in order to keep his starting spot. He did have some better at-bats over the last few weeks. However, if he continues to hit in the .170s for another 30 or 40 games, I'm confident in saying that a change will be made in CF for THIS season.

 

He's already dug himself quite a hole. If he hits .250 from here on out, he'll still be stuck below the Mendoza line for a while.

Not a chance that Ozzie/KW will continue to play him if he's hitting under .200 all season.

 

You're probably right. But while I think he'll eventually get over the hump, my point is that our offense is good enough to live with his dead bat at the bottom of the order. His defense is much more important to us.

 

Of course, you want to see a little progression on offense, and I believe he is ever so slowly coming around. We'll see, I guess.

How many 3-2 games have we lost this year guys? Not many, most of our losses are because Garland/middle relief/Jenks twice completely blew up. When we lose, it's because of the pitching, not the hitting (for the most part)....this is not 2005. Don't worry about Brian, he's a great defender and his hitting is slowly coming around. If we start losing 3-2 games more often and he's leaving 5 on base, then we'll get back to this thread.

Give him all the time he needs because his defense has been outstanding and not much is expected from the 9th slot when you have Thome and Konerko. Plus, the kid's OBP has been going up over the last two weeks so his recognition of pitches seems to be getting better. Kazmir's pretty good (Reminds me of Johan Santana) and he made all the Sox hitters look bad, not just Brian.

I pulled up Brian's name in my fantasy league to get his # of AB's when I noticed something interesting.

 

Brian has 15 runs, 4 hr, and 10RBI in 97 ab's hitting out of the 9 hole.

 

Garret Anderson, who makes millions and plays mediocre D, has 15 runs, 4hr, and 24 RBI in 137 ab's out of the cleanup spot.

 

GA has a better average but I'd say that the difference in their averages is negated by the quality of D Brian plays in CF.

 

Give the kid some time. He doesn't even have 100ab's yet. He's looking much better at the plate and is an exceptional outfielder. There really aren't any offensively dominant CF'ers in all of baseball, it's a defensive position. He's not hurting our team near as much as some of these threads would lead one to believe.

I pulled up Brian's name in my fantasy league to get his # of AB's when I noticed something interesting.

 

Brian has 15 runs, 4 hr, and 10RBI in 97 ab's hitting out of the 9 hole.

 

Garret Anderson, who makes millions and plays mediocre D, has 15 runs, 4hr, and 24 RBI in 137 ab's out of the cleanup spot.

 

GA has a better average but I'd say that the difference in their averages is negated by the quality of D Brian plays in CF.

 

Give the kid some time. He doesn't even have 100ab's yet. He's looking much better at the plate and is an exceptional outfielder. There really aren't any offensively dominant CF'ers in all of baseball, it's a defensive position. He's not hurting our team near as much as some of these threads would lead one to believe.

 

Agreed. But the fact remains, Brian is going to have to pick it up some.

Agreed. But the fact remains, Brian is going to have to pick it up some.

 

 

And I think he will. Perhaps one of the minor league gurus could chime in, but didn't Brian have a pretty tough time at AAA when first promoted? He's been successful at every level of ball he's played. In order to accomplish that feat you've got to have the ability to adjust. AAA was probably quite an adjustment from AA, it took him some time but once he got adjusted, he was an impact player. I expect much of the same at the ML level. Now if he's still hitting .190-.200 come the trade deadline, well, some tough decisions will need to be made.

Brian has helped us more than he has hurt us. And he is improving at the plate.

How many championship teams have had a sub .200 hitter in their lineup? I know he hits 9th and the team has been doing fine without his bat, but you can't have automatic outs in your lineup. I hope he comes around, but it seems like every time he takes a step forward he takes 2 back.

Player TEAM POS G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI TB BB SO SB CS OBP SLG AVG

 

J Uribe CWS SS 32 114 9 24 4 1 3 13 39 5 22 0 1 .246 .342 .211

 

B Anderson CWS OF 34 97 15 17 2 0 4 10 31 13 32 2 1 .277 .320 .175

 

 

I'll wait it out with Anderson because he makes it look so easy in CF. Who should we put in there for Uribe?

We scored 7 runs last night, we lost because our middle relief is amazingly bad right now....not sure how this relates.

 

^^^

 

BA definitely needs to step it up at the plate, but it's not like he's losing games for us.

Player TEAM POS G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI TB BB SO SB CS OBP SLG AVG

 

J Uribe CWS SS 32 114 9 24 4 1 3 13 39 5 22 0 1 .246 .342 .211

 

B Anderson CWS OF 34 97 15 17 2 0 4 10 31 13 32 2 1 .277 .320 .175

I'll wait it out with Anderson because he makes it look so easy in CF. Who should we put in there for Uribe?

Uribe is showing signs of breaking out of his slump. He had 3 hits last night and 3 hits 2 games ago. I'm not worried about him at all.