Ryan Sweeney must have enjoyed the taste of getting more than one base at a time, because
he smacked two doubles in the Arizona Fall League finale, giving him all three of his extra-base hits in the last two days of the regular season.
Scott Merkin gives a reason -- or excuse -- for the power outage:
"Right now, I'm trying to get the swing down where it feels comfortable
to me," said Sweeney, during a recent interview with MLB.com. "I'm not
worried about the other stuff.
"Obviously I want to do good down here, but I'm not really
worried about what I'm hitting or what the numbers are saying. I'm
trying to get something that feels good. Right now, my swing feels good
and my approach feels good."
It's not often that the headline ("Sweeney tweaks his swing") says as much as the actual story does -- with no word of how or why, although we can presume the latter is due to his mediocre showing in Charlotte this year. For all we know, it could be the equivalent of Sox players saying they're "getting work in" during spring training, an approach that has been soundly criticized for the last five months or so.
Spring training will likely be the fulcrum of Sweeney's Sox career, unless an injury or similar issue allows Kenny Williams and Ozzie Guillen to delay making a decision. If he's not able to beat out Jerry Owens for the fourth (or starting weak-hitting left-handed) outfielder spot, he'll be starting in Charlotte for a third consecutive season. That, on the heels of the decision to not call up Sweeney in September, would be a pretty stark indicator of their faith in their No. 2 pick of the 2003 draft.
He seems to be on the verge of receiving a Brian Anderson-style shunning, which is surprising considering
how much Ozzie gushed about Sweeney during his call-up in 2006. That's why it's odd that Merkin suggests that Sweeney needs to not let his decline bother him. From what Ozzie has shown so far, he seems to hold self-flagellation in higher regard than the "water off a duck's back" mentality, and
the latter attitude may have played a part in his September vacation.
Sweeney is not first in line for the third outfield spot (or fourth, depending on what Williams reels in this offseason), so it wouldn't be unjust if he began the year in Triple-A. But somebody needs to put an end to this trend of Sox prospects' propensity to bury themselves.
Damnit, I'm alarmed again.
OK, so what do you expect from Sweeney from here on out?
For whatever reason -- being a tall, not-hulking white left-handed outfielder with a pretty swing and a fair amount of speed probably had a little to do with it -- I've always had Sweeney aligned with
Baltimore's Nick Markakis. I'd hoped Sweeney could top out at Markakis' 2007 (.300/.362/.485), while expecting something close to his 2006 (.291/.351/.448), but now I feel I should scale back even further....
....like,
So Taguchi further. Taguchi doesn't exactly resemble Sweeney -- most notably, he's six inches shorter, not to mention right-handed -- and is prone to embarrassing outfield adventures, but the offense seems about right. Taguchi has a career line of .283/.336/.391, neither walks nor strikes out much and has so-so success stealing bases. I can see Sweeney topping out that way, though it's not like I want to.
Hopefully one of you will have a rosier outlook. Sweeney would still be useful at that clip since he's by all accounts a good defensive outfielder with a plus arm, but not on a team already starting one fourth outfielder, and rotating fifth outfielders in the third spot.