Rex Hudler Posted May 6, 2004 Share Posted May 6, 2004 In no particular order.......... The good..... Mike Morse has surpassed everyone's expectations. He is a career .248 hitter. His swing is a bit long and he doesn't take a lot of pitches as evidenced by only 4 BB's. But he is showing power in a tough stadium to hit in and has been solid in the field. While watching him play defense, I don't get much of a reaction, positive or negative. I don't see Jason Dellaero skills, nor do I see Edward Scissorhands, so that is all I have to go by now. Michael Spidale is doing exactly what he needed to do coming into this year. His weaknesses are a lack of power, a below average arm and falling into a habit of hitting too many fly balls. He takes walks (.430 OBP) and has 9 doubles. He will need to keep his average up and not fall off like last year where he lost approx. 30 points in the last two months of the season. He is not real big, so perhaps his body breaks down over the course of the long season? His OF defense is excellent and he can really go get balls in the gap. He will never get much acclaim as a prospect, but he has a chance as a 4th OF if can have a good year in AA. If not, he will become just another minor league OF with a couple of nice tools. Chris Stewart is a light hitting catcher who is very good defensively. He doesn't have Olivo's arm strength, but his release is as quick as they come. He is hitting for a higher average than expected, but hasn't produced much (3 BBs, 3 2B, 2 RBI). Defense is definitely his forte. Arnie Munoz is blowing away the Southern League. He doesn't look imposing, nor does he have an imposing fastball. He does, however have a big time curveball and varies speeds with it. His changeup has been real good and he can sneak it up to 90 mph occasionally, although he is normally around 86. The only knock on Arnie is his size. Will his body hold up through a full season's worth of starter innings? Will MLB hitters be intimidated when looking at a 5'7" pitcher? Will his curveball and change be good enough to offset an average fastball? Results are what matters so I think he will be okay. Whether that is as a starter or a reliever, remains to be seen. Jeff Bajenaru does not belong in AA. Lights out is the easiset way I can describe him so far this year. A BB/K ratio of 2/17 in only 10.2 innings is especially impressive. He locates well, throws in the low 90's and his slider has made hitters look stupid. The pitching staff has been solid all the way around. The starters, minus Honel and Wing have been excellent and the bullpen has held up their end of the deal. A team ERA of 3.08 says it all. The bad... Kris Honel has only pitched 4 innings and is on the DL. After a simulated game on Sunday where he was throwing in the low 80's, I don't think he will be back soon. I hear he has no more pain and no medical exams have found anything, so it is a mystery what is wrong. Ryan Wing is still in Arizona rehabbing tendonitis in his shoulder. Originally expected to report to Birmingham in May, it now looks as if it will be at least June. Wyatt Allen just can't cut it. I have seen no indication of any command or real idea of where the ball is going to end up. It looks as he were a risky draft pick based on arm strength that never could learn to pitch. Jim Bullard hasn't been that bad aside from one spot start where he got drilled. The bad part of his situation is that the Sox converted him in the fall to a sidearm arm slot ala Kelly Wunsch. Bullard recently abandoned that arm slot and is back to his normal 3/4. Rather than working to get better in Instructional League, the off-season and spring training, he was led into a failed experiment and lost development time. The ironic thing is that they were trying to make him like Wunsch, now they are trying to get rid of Wunsch. Ruddy Yan has disappointed. He is hitting just .239 which I can chalk up to being early in the season. But he only has 4 stolen bases while being caught stealing 5 times. He has also walked just 4 times and struck out 17, which is not what you are looking for from your leadoff hitter. The vets/free agents have been extremely disappointing. Darren Blakely, Rob Sasser, Micah Franklin, Aaron McNeal and Nate Murphy (average age 28.6) are hitting a collective .220 and have 126 strikouts between them (averaging 1 for every 3.1 AB's). The ugly... -- .240 team batting average -- 219 strikeouts in just 821 AB's -- Only 21 SB, after having 8 in one game -- Shaffer hitting .103 (put him out of his misery please) -- Micah Franklin hitting .129 and looking unbelievably overmatched. His swing is incredibly wrong for this big ballpark. He is getting twisted into a pretzel on breaking balls time after time. He had his big league time. Time to move on.... -- Kris Keller is really struggling with an 8.10 ERA. He has his one game in the big leagues. Time to move on..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperSteve Posted May 6, 2004 Share Posted May 6, 2004 Wow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chisoxfn Posted May 6, 2004 Share Posted May 6, 2004 Great Stuff Rex; I love it when you analyze Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DBAHO Posted May 6, 2004 Share Posted May 6, 2004 Any chance we could see Morse up in Charlotte in a few months Rex, if he keeps hittin the way he has? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
southsider2k5 Posted May 6, 2004 Share Posted May 6, 2004 Wow, Bull ditched the sidearm stuff. Any word on exactly why? Did the experiement fail or was he hurt or something else??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rex Hudler Posted May 6, 2004 Author Share Posted May 6, 2004 Wow, Bull ditched the sidearm stuff. Any word on exactly why? Did the experiement fail or was he hurt or something else??? Just totally guessing, but I would think it had to do with comfort and results. He had walked more people than normal, so perhaps he just didn't have faith that he would master it. I know from playing many years ago, that when you try something new it can be frustrating. It is one thing to be "experimenting" in practice, or in his case ST, or Instructs, but when you don't feel comfortable in games and aren't getting the results you want, it is real frustrating. The temptation to go back to "what you know" is great. My guess is that he just felt it wasn't working well and didn't want to have a s***ty season trying something new. A bad year at this stage in his career could hurt him in a big way. It could get him released or just effectively kill any chance he had to make the big leagues. I know I wouldn't want to be monkeying around with something new while watching my ERA soar, knowing my career is on the line. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rex Hudler Posted May 6, 2004 Author Share Posted May 6, 2004 Any chance we could see Morse up in Charlotte in a few months Rex, if he keeps hittin the way he has? I don't think so...... I still see weaknesses in his swing that make me think he will eventually be headed back toward that .250 hitter he has always been. Perhaps he can find a home near .280. But there are still plate discipline issues I am concerned with. Let's see how a long season plays out before we start thinking about promotions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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