I am starting to believe that Dickerson is the answer against righties in centerfield over the long haul. Certainly, we have seen Dickerson’s past struggles against lefties. So the question that I want help answering is who would you rather see in centerfield against lefties for the short and long-term to fill out that platoon? 2 months and 201 plate appearances is a large enough sample size to reaffirm my belief that Willy Taveras is nothing better than a below average center fielder. A .318 OBP is right in line with what the pessimists expected out of Taveras this year. Getting rid of Patterson, most posters believed that an upgrade was automatic with whoever the Reds’ plugged into centerfield. However, Willy has proved these people wrong. Right now, Willy Taveras has negative value. However, are you ready to call-up Drew Stubbs? A .397 OBP sure looks good, but it is hard to forget the struggles Stubbs has had in the minors over the past few years. From all accounts and purposes, Stubbs is a plus-plus defensive centerfielder and has the potential to develop plus power for a centerfielder. A .300+ BA is nice for those who like that stat. So, the poll is who would you rather see in centerfield against lefties tomorrow? Remember to consider what I call the Homer Bailey syndrome of calling a prospect up too early and ruining his confidence. I have read on the ORG the mantra of “Challenge thy hitters and coddle thy pitchers,” so the HB syndrome may not apply. What do you think?
As you can probably tell from the tone of the above paragraph, I want to see Stubbs up in the bigs. He has proved himself in AAA and Taveras is not enough in my mind to block him. Plus, as much as I love seeing the current Carolina line-up, I believe it is time to call up Heisey. Am I jumping the gun? What do you think?
For the sake of being all-inclusive, I will also include Hopper and Heisey for those who want to vote for them. I know Hopper has his share of followers on Redszone and Heisey is sure lighting the world on fire in AA and many great players have been called up straight from AA.
