Guess which sentence from Scott Merkin is true about Ryan Sweeney:
- His effort has been impressive enough to earn Sweeney serious consideration for the final White Sox roster spot.
- He craps raspberry sherbet.
The answer: Neither.
The difference is that Merkin
actually wrote the first one. Though if the latter were true, he would be the first to tell us.
I understand why Merkin won’t write a negative word about any Sox player, even if I don’t agree with it. But he could at least stop with the excessive lauding of players who really don’t need the pressure.
Yes, Sweeney’s having a nice spring. But a .314 average and a few homers aren’t going to cut it when 1) Tucson Electric Park is a launching pad, 2) he’s not hitting against proven major leaguers, 3) he hit one homer in Double-A last year and 4) the roster is already set. Unless Merkin was talking about the final spot on the White Sox’s 31-man roster, which doesn’t yet exist.
Merkin-knocking aside, the one redeeming quality of this article is the timing, as it coincides with
Jeremy Reed injuring his wrist during a Spring Training game in Seattle.
Perhaps the last time Kenny Williams truly frustrated me was when he dealt Joe Borchard to the Mariners instead of Reed in the Freddy Garcia deal. It frustrated me so much, in fact, that I reversed the details of the trade and thought Seattle wouldn’t have accepted Borchard and wanted Reed instead, but Google tells me that wasn’t the case.
At a time when Joe Borchard was swinging and missing, Reed was building a solid minor-league track record, including a 2003 season at Double-A in which he hit .409 in 66 games. Making matters worse, after the trade, Reed was called up in September and hit .397 in 58 at-bats while Borchard continued to be Borchard.
But Williams couldn’t get enough of Borchard’s awesome power, even though Borchard never put the bat on the ball enough to use it.
The reasoning was that Reed was a non-toolsy outfielder who projected to do a bit of everything well, but no one thing superbly. Well, Williams thought he had a lot of guys that fit that description, including Sweeney, Brian Anderson in the minors and Aaron Rowand at the major-league level. Borchard might cover enough holes in his swing to be Adam Dunn, and that tremendous power was the difference-maker.
However, out of that group, I was the biggest fan of Reed because he was the best contact hitter of the bunch, and like they’re saying about Sweeney, I felt Reed could grow into 15-homer power at least while actually hitting major-league pitching and playing quality defense.
Fortunately, Reed’s injuries have bought some time while waiting for another young Sox outfielder to emerge. He battled a partially torn left wrist tendon last year, which nagged him to the tune of a .254 average with only three homers. Now he’s broken his hand, which will cost him at least six weeks and perhaps hamper him further.
So while Borchard has flopped and Anderson goes through rookie pains, at least we won’t be seeing Reed competing for batting titles on the other side of the country like we hoped he would for the Sox.