Juan Uribe
finally reported to camp today, although remarkably it seems that he is both in the clear and still required to attend a court hearing in a month. At least he's lost some weight. The Southtown's Nate Whalen
posted the transcript of his news conference in his blog.
(By the way, if anybody knows the address of the Dominican farmer,
maybe we should send him something.)
Now, should this whole shooting incident truly be behind him, we're left with the
good bad questions, namely "Can he hit again?"
One thing that sticks in my head is hearing about Frank Thomas serving as a second hitting coach for Juan Uribe. When Juan would have one of his patented terrible at-bats, Thomas would get on his case about it, and Uribe appreciated it. I could be making this all up, because Google doesn't back me up here, but I
swear I heard this. I think Frank had Willie Harris under his wing as well.
Anyway, I decided to take
Baseball Musings' database for a spin and separate the Torpedo Boat's numbers into two fields -- when Frank was healthy, and when he wasn't.
There is a noticeable difference, though with a big caveat:
| | AB | H | HR | RBI | BB | K | BA | OBP | SLG |
w/o Thomas
| 1,043 | 265 | 46 | 160 | 50 | 179 | .254 | .288 | .454 |
w/ Thomas
| 407 | 110 | 14 | 58 | 29 | 76 | .270 | .318 | .452 |
While Uribe's plate discipline seems to improve with Thomas' presence, most of that has to do with the way Uribe started out his 2004 campaign -- .282/.337/.488 between Opening Day and July 7 (the last game Thomas played in 2004). When Thomas returned to the lineup in 2005 for his 43 games, Uribe didn't respond (.236/.271/.350). Basically Uribe's been hitting at that top line since the Big Hurt went down in '04.
That said, segregating the numbers doesn't really mean anything. But SSJ Reb reminded me in the
previous post's comments when talking about Thomas as a hitting coach, and since I looked this all up, there wasn't much point in keeping it to myself.
I'd gladly take that if he got back to playing Gold Glove-caliber defense. I just don't know if there's much reason to hold out hope for much more.
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In additional news, Chicago Heights native
Bret Prinz and the Sox
agreed to a minor-league deal. Given the assortment of injuries he's suffered, they may as well call him
"Delicate and Tender" Prinz.
OK, this signing doesn't really have any implications whatsoever, but can't a brother make a Hamlet joke?