I agree. And I don't want Ensberg platooning. Blum has played SS in the past- In 1999 he played 42 games there and in 2000 44 for the Expos. If he plays SS, we will have only one really weak hitter- Ausmus. If he plays at 3rd, we have two weak hitters-Ausmus and Everett, and one above average guy (Blum).
For the fielding that Everett gives us, it's worth having him in there, even if he hasn't the second weakest bat in the lineup. However, .255 isn't bad at all for a weak-hitting, 8th in the lineup SS. I think the best bet is Blum playing 3-4 games a week at 3B, SS, 2nd, or RF.
The bats in this club are starting to wake up, and I expect it to get much better after the break. Bagwell is finally starting to get his swing back, it now looks good again and is producing some nice hits. 50-44 is their record this year, and last years was 44-45....or some thing like that. How come they played more games this year in the first half? LET'S GO 'STROS!!!
They played exactly the same number of games in the first half as last year: 81. The All-Star Break is never the exact half-way point anyway, but it is a week later this year.
AMEN. I absolutely love watching him in the field. Anyone with a kid who plays ball should take him to a game & do nothing but watch AE for a few innings. His footwork & hands are quite possibly the best in the NL. When guys are as good in the field as Everett & Ausmus and you have a middle of the order like the Stros do (especially when everybody's healthy), you can definitely live with their mediocre (AE) to pathetic (Brad) offensive production. I'm still waiting for Refman to admit I was right about Everett. The silence is deafening. Oh, for the last time, Blum cannot play SS on anything but an extremely sporadic (i.e. emergency) basis. He simply doesn't have the range. He's our new Bill Spiers - PH, double switch, spell guys in LF/RF, 2B, 1B, 3B when they need a day off.
Yeah, it's so nice not to cringe everytime a ball is hit to SS...and I was one of Lugo's biggest defenders. The kid's swinging the bat pretty well lately as well.
when people talk about benching everett in favor of blum it makes me wonder if they have even watched an astros game in the past 3 months. Blum is a utility player and when kent comes back that's what he'll be and should be
And there's absolutely nothing wrong with being a utility guy, every team needs a Jose Oquendo, Bill Spiers, Geoff Blum type guy. He's more valuable to the team in that role than he is as a regular starter, and the suggestion of playing him regularly at SS is as ludicrous as moving Bags to 3rd. Pure fantacrap by folks who don't understand the whole game, just look at numbers.
share time with everett. i dont want to see blums bat go to waste when he could hit 20+ home runs full time.
if you look atblums shortstop fielding numbers the 2 years he played it they are better than everetts numbers of the 2002 and 2003 season. all they should do is share time.
Fielding percentage is an overrated statistic. Everett gets to balls and makes throws that Blum could only dream of making. (I am not denigrating Blum in the least, he is simply nowhere near the defensive SS that Everett is, neither is Vizcaino, neither is Lugo). Craig Biggio is doing an adequate job in CF, but I would suspect that most baseball scouts consider him average, at best, in CF. Craig Biggio's Fp is 1.000. He has yet to make an error this year, but there are balls he should get to that he simply doesn't.
Actually they are not. Blum's lifetime FP at SS is .955 while Everett's is around .965. Everett's range factor and zone rating are also better than Blum's.
I am respectfully requesting that you refrain from using this term as it causes that annoying Fanta Soda jingle to become stuck in my head.
