Quote:
Originally Posted by smixsell
I want to make one thing clear which I probably didn't do as well as I should have in my earlier posts, I wholeheartedly agree that if BP stays exactly the hitter he has been up to this point in his career, yes he will hit into a lot of DPs.
My whole thrust is that if BP make the adjustments to his approach at the plate which I beleive he is CAPABLE of making, he will be a fantastic #2 man. That's why I would place him there and encourage him to make the appropriate adjustments to his hitting approach. If he can't or won't make the proper adjustments, then on to plan B.
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But this goes back to the "great Stubbs debate." If a player is capable of doing something different than he has throughout his career that would cause him to be a significantly better player (e.g. Stubbs focusing on bunting to increase his BA/OBP while cutting down on his strikeouts, which are a product of swinging frely) then why hasn't that happened already? One would think that Phillips hitting at a .320/.400/.440 clip (dropping his increase in slugging due to more hits because of a new focus on singles rather than XBH) would make him instantly a better ballplayer than he is now.
Players are organic creatures who have such exceptionally highly honed skills at the MLB level that expecting them to "change their stripes" is the exception rather than the rule. Like WOY said a while back- the worst player in MLB would be the best player that any of us would have ever played with by miles. Expecting them to change everything about their approach to the game- conceptually, physically, mentally, strategically, and so on- is a pretty large request for such an expert.