First off, Luis' comment on Upper Iowa University was flat out wrong. He's just bitter that "former Saluki great" Dion Coopwood went there first before transferring to Southern Illinois.
Now onto something slightly less ridiculous.
Josh Fields wants out of the Chicago White Sox organization. We know, we know, it worked for Brian Anderson.
But you can't fix bad. Bad being an inability to hit belt-high mid-90's fastballs.
Check that, it's REAL bad.
That's the scouting report on Fields: feed him fastballs in on his hands and watch him whiff.
Clearly, there's some potential here, more so than was the case with Anderson. Fields had a great year in 2007 on a bad team besides an obscene amount of strikeouts.
But that was his rookie year.
If you can believe it, the rest of the league figured out the belt-high fastball weakness and exploited the hell out of it.
Imagine that!
Sadly, Fields never adjusted back and coupled his poor defense with poor hitting make him an awful candidate for a starting third base job which he held on to longer than he should have with Gordon Beckham waiting in the wings.
In reality, Fields should have been sent to Triple-A a long time ago because he rarely plays and that's only hindering his progress. But at the current time, there isn't anywhere for him to play regardless of the fact that outfielder DeWayne Wise still has a job despite his sub-.200 average.
I just found it hilarious that Fields complained about his playing time earlier in the season when he was hitting .220-ish with terrible defense. It's sort of like the same thing Nick Swisher did last year and it bought him a ticket out of town.
The situation of selling low on both Swisher and Anderson before was shocking in a sense of how low they sold on them (basically getting nothing in return). Although Anderson didn't have much value I thought Swisher did.
But in the case with Swisher and to a certain extent, pitcher Javy Vazquez, it was a straight salary dump.
Would both of those players had a spot on this season's team? Sure, but the poor attitudes sealed their trip out the door.
Swisher brought absolutely nothing back in return as the centerpiece of that deal, Jeff Marquez, barely looks like a Triple-A player. At least in the case of Vazquez, the White Sox netted a future backstop in Tyler Flowers.
But selling as low on Fields as they did on both Vazquez and Swisher is a stupid move for the club because Fields doesn't cost anything and still has options left.
He wants to be traded? Too bad. Let him figure his stuff out first in Triple-A and then worry about it. Why do we care about his feelings? Why should the front office?
If he wants to be traded make him up his value in Triple-A first so the White Sox don't deal him for a LOOGY or a non-impact player for a potentially non-existent stretch run.
In Anderson's case, there were no "flashes" but I think there still might be a future for Fields on this team if he can show the 2007 wasn't a fluke by figuring out the hole in his swing.
After that promising year, during one game which White Sox broadcaster Steve Stone compared him to being on the same track as Milwaukee Brewers left fielder Ryan Braun (WHOOPS!), Fields tanked after a leg injury and psychological pressure.
There still might be hope so don't sell low unless he's out of options.
0 comments:
Post a Comment