Which item of news out of Venezuela was worse for the Sox's long-term future?
Brian Anderson losing 15-20 pounds thanks to a mystery stomach ailment, or Josh Fields missing the chance to work on his left field skills?
Per Ozzie Guillen:
"I never saw him out there, and I don't know how many innings I can
give him [in spring training] with the other outfielders we have."
Then I'm wondering if this would be the right time to deal him.
Granted, I've
never been a real big fan of Fields because of his similarities to Joe Borchard -- former quarterbacks, big athletic, toolsy guys with gigantic holes in their swings that apparently stay the same size. And while his
hot first half at Charlotte almost changed my mind, take his sub-par second half and subsequent miserable at-bats during his September call-up, and now his dismal La Guiara numbers, and here's what you get:
Not too much can be made of these numbers in and of themselves, since they include a first crack at major-league pitching and a winter league ball where seemingly everything went wrong.
On the other hand, it hardly indicates that he's really refined his game at all this year. Look at his split page, and you'll see his had batting averages on balls in play of .438, .439 and .451 in his first three months. Last year, the White Sox had a BABIP of .309, and the league average was .308.
Because Fields strikes out so often, he's pretty much always going to beat the average mark. But in order to come close to meeting the top prospect hype, he's either going to have to 1) put more balls in play, or 2) put more balls out of the yard. Looking
at his second half, the only above-average month came when he hit five homers, and 12 of his 26 hits were for extra bases, and he still had a sub-standard OBP.
Somehow he managed to walk five times at the big-league level, though if he gets regular playing time pitchers will find out they can take their chances with anything breaking in the zone. If he can maintain a decent walk rate, then his speed and baserunning abilities make him valuable. But he's going to need to hit before he can walk to give pitchers a reason to be scared of him. That's something Borchard never did, and we saw how that worked out.
How would you handle Fields?