T.R. Sullivan mailbag

while I would have taken his 07 for the rangers, it was a huge dropoff and he is off to a really bad 08 too. not broussard bad, but bad.

He could have thrown in the comment “and because Chris Davis isn’t here yet”

other than, “we suck, deal with it.”

But that’s because it’s Gerald Laird. TR is correct in principle, though.

But I have no idea what that would do to the 40-man, etc. Would we reasonably have to drop someone, say, Mench or Broussard, for Shelton to come up? (Mench is on the 40, yes? I know pitifully little about who’s on what roster.)

Because people hate me for saying Laird shouldn’t play over Salty… but I can’t resist.

I will, however, condense my thoughts:

Sample size!

Take out the April 6th game and what do you have?

.676 career OPS.

I’d rather see Salty, too, but Laird is a serviceable catcher, and needs playing time, even if (or especially if) his ultimate value to this team is getting traded.

Laird has been better than I thought he would be offensively, so far.

I hope he keeps it up and continues to prove me wrong. As long as he’s a Ranger.

theres a difference between thinking someone is terrible and preferring someone else play.

i dont think laird has been terrible, i just think salty would be better, and in a dead season might as well be playing. and of course, hes up now. we will see how the at bats play out.

“At some point, the Rangers have to make a decision at the position. But it hasn’t reached that point yet, and Laird has hardly deserved to lose his job. I would rank him far down the list of reasons why the Rangers have started poorly.”

So, he gets punished for playing well, if I were Laird, I would be praying to get traded.

First, let me say that I agree that we should have gone with Shelton.

But, your argument for as to why we should have gone with Shelton holds little weight. His “average season” is only two incomplete seasons amounting to a total of 800 at bats. It gets even more confusing when you look at the stats closer.

For instance, Chris Shelton’s monthly splits are ridiculous. For instance, he has a 1.116 OPS in March/April (2006) with 10 of his 35 career home runs coming in this one month alone. Compare that with his .214 BA and .724 OPS in his two Augusts. These two numbers are rather indicative of his first and second half splits. In the first half he has put up an .878 OPS, but only a .755 OPS in the second half. Furthermore, Shelton has a total of 219 ABs against lefties…that’s not very many and definitely not enough for one to say “his lefty splits along are enough to earn him the job.”

Realistically, if you remove that one very good April from Shelton’s career his stats look much worse than Broussard. Especially when you look at the splits, you notice that despite having nearly three times as many major league at bats, Broussard is much more consistent. He’s decent against righties .797, and terrible against lefties…really, really terrible. Still, he’s more consistent.

So I don’t disagree with your point, but I do disagree with your argument. I would make the case based on money, age and potential (although neither have much potential).