Who would you rather see in centerfield against lefties?

[Edd Roush]

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.

[texasdave]

Stubbs and Heisey need to stay down on the farm for the time being. If Hopper is an improvement (he is only OPSing .705 in AAA), it is a marginal improvement at best. I think you stick with Taveras until at least the All-Star break. WT by default it would appear. The toughest part is that Taveras is not even a good platoon candidate. For his career he actually hits righthanders a little better than lefthanders. Eek, aside from Gomes none of the Reds' outfield candidates have swung a very potent stick versus lefthanders in their careers.

PLAYER	     COPSVLH
NIX	     0.435
TAVERAS	     0.650
BRUCE	     0.559
GOMES	     0.883
DICKERSON    0.728
HAIRSTON     0.713
	
KEPPINGER    0.915

I threw Keppinger in there just because. I still have no idea how a team that was going to struggle to score runs could not find a place for someone who has raked like that against LHP in his career.

[Edd Roush]

Originally Posted by texasdave

Stubbs and Heisey need to stay down on the farm for the time being. If Hopper is an improvement (he is only OPSing .705 in AAA), it is a marginal improvement at best. I think you stick with Taveras until at least the All-Star break. WT by default it would appear. The toughest part is that Taveras is not even a good platoon candidate. For his career he actually hits righthanders a little better than lefthanders. Eek, aside from Gomes none of the Reds' outfield candidates have swung a very potent stick versus lefthanders in their careers.

PLAYER	     COPSVLH
NIX	     0.435
TAVERAS	     0.650
BRUCE	     0.559
GOMES	     0.883
DICKERSON    0.728
HAIRSTON     0.713
	
KEPPINGER    0.915

I threw Keppinger in there just because. I still have no idea how a team that was going to struggle to score runs could not find a place for someone who has raked like that against LHP in his career.

Taveras and Dickerson's career struggles against lefties, is the inspiration of this thread. The real reason I wanted to start this thread is to see if other Reds' fans like me think Stubbs could produce better than WT on the Major League level today. I included Heisey and Hopper for those who are bigger fans of them than I.