Who gives a crap where he ranks among shortstops? On the Astros, he's a bottom of the order hitter. Hmmm...let's have a look: 7spot, MLB average: .252 / .321 / .392 / .714 8spot, MLB average: .226 / .297 / .343 / .641 AE, career average: .246 / .299 / .357 / .656
If you can't comprehend that the batting order and position on the field are two separate issues, why are even arguing? Do *all* shortstops hit 7th or 8th in the lineup? If you compare *hitting*, you compare a team's 7-hitters to other 7-hitters, capiche? Unless, of course, you think it's appropriate to compare Adam Everett to A-Rod in his prime or Willy Tavarez to Andruw Jones.
I think Loretta should start over Everett too. I mean, for the past.. I don't know.. 5 seasons, what have we lacked? OFFENSE Loretta = Proven ALLSTAR who has professional at-bats, can get on base, and make pitchers work their counts. at SS he is inferior to everett at fielding, but SUCH a better batter Everett = Proven stud SS, nowhere near allstar level, and SUCKS at hitting, he doesn't even work counts or anything. He's been the same hitter for his whole career, hacker who gets lucky if he makes it out of the infield. For a team whose games are decided by 1 runs win or loss, we need more power. A big issue I've had with this team over the past few years is our completely awful 7-8-9. Ev-Aussimo-Pitcher spot is just terrible. Especially b/c Everett Ks so much and we have to start with 8-9-1 for so many innings. This pretty much guarantees that Biggio will come up w/ 2 outs and nobody on. We need a productive batter at the end of our lineup, and we have one in Loretta. He needs to play.
Are you saying his defensive skills are not near all-star levels? Because if so, everyone who knows anything about baseball is laughing at you. There are a lot of people who missed that Pittsburgh game a couple weeks ago. Understandable since it was on the same night as a Rockets game. If you had seen it, there's no way you'd want Loretta starting over Everett.
You have to be and all-around stud player to be an allstar. His D is allstar level; but his O is so bad that he, like i said "is nowhere near allstar level".. laugh away if you'd like
since everett is the greatest defensive shortstop to ever grace this planet, don't you think you haters could quit griping about the fact that he might be the worst hitter to ever live? i'm against the dh in principle but maybe we could have a dss rule in the nl.
Everett is closer to being an all-star SS than Loretta if we're talking all-around. I love how most of you have ignored this: That's worth benching the best defensive SS in the game today? Puhfreakinglease.
Unfortunately we have 3 number 7 hitters on our team: Everett, Biggio and Ensberg. Ausmus doesn't even qualify for 7th (he will come back to Earth). Biggio is untouchable, evidently. So if we want to improve our offense its by replacing Everett or the other untouchable Ausmus. Ensberg with his average and walks is still head and shoulders offensively above both. Everett is it, so the argument is do we gamble away defense to increase offense. I say yes, you say no. Good enough.
ummm..if you're gonna pick on a team for their performance over the past 5 years, it probably shouldn't be the astros. if you're gonna pick on the astros of the past 5 years relative to other astros teams, you probably shouldn't. in the past 5 years AE has been the starting SS on a team that's been to the league championship twice and won the franchise's first and only pennant. oh...and we didn't lack offense at all in 2004. no one cares what the 7/8 hitters are doing when the 3/4/5 guys are doing their job. that's the point.
Ok, I'll accept that. I think he should be leading off, because of his OBP. Biggio would still get almost as many bats and is a better bunter and is still very fast going down the line and would mess up a lot of double plays batting second. At some point after 3000, maybe Garner will have the cajones to bench him for Loretta and/or Burke, but I doubt it. Until then Ensberg should bat leadoff when in the lineup. My point really is that we have had a sub par offense for many years. We have been successful because of our pitching. Pitching has been great this year, but I have my doubts that it will remain at a level high enough to carry us to the playoffs like in past years. If that is the case, we need an above average offense. Everyone has started off poorly, but history would suggest that the positions we need to replace to get better offensively are Shortstop, 3b, 2b, and catcher. Unless Garner relenquishes his man crushes on Ausmus and Biggio, that leaves only Ensberg and Everett. Ensberg still gets on base. That leaves Everett.
Then your point is wrong. We have had a lousy offense for two years. Two. The offense this year will prove superior to that of last year, Everett and Ausmus notwithstanding.
and i will agree with you to the extent you think 2 years is "many years." the 2004 astros could flat out hit.
oh...and we didn't lack offense at all in 2004. no one cares what the 7/8 hitters are doing when the 3/4/5 guys are doing their job. that's the point.[/QUOTE] We had Beltran
We had Beltran[/QUOTE] right. who wasn't all that impressive in the regular season for us...but was fantastic in the playoffs. we didn't have a hard time scoring runs in either the reg season or playoffs that year. we have this guy named carlos lee now. he bats next to another guy named lance berkman. when those guys do the job they're paid to do, we score runs. see the last 5-6 games. we generally win those games. all that while AE hasn't been hitting. earlier in the season, however, AE was hitting just fine. berkman and lee were not. we lost.
right. who wasn't all that impressive in the regular season for us...but was fantastic in the playoffs. we didn't have a hard time scoring runs in either the reg season or playoffs that year. we have this guy named carlos lee now. he bats next to another guy named lance berkman. when those guys do the job they're paid to do, we score runs. see the last 5-6 games. we generally win those games. all that while AE hasn't been hitting. earlier in the season, however, AE was hitting just fine. berkman and lee were not. we lost.[/QUOTE] Alrite, we can agree to disagree. I don't like arguing with fellow Astros fans.
