For every young center fielder like Colby Rasmus who is blossoming, there are center fielders who are slow out of the gate. Let’s look at four up-and-coming center fielders who are really struggling so far.
Drew Stubbs, Cincinnati Reds: .174 with two home runs, a .267 OBP, a 32.6 K percentage in 26 games
Cameron Maybin, Florida Marlins: .238 with a home run, a .304 OBP, a 34.3 K percentage in 25 games
Dexter Fowler, Colorado Rockies: .257 with a home run, a .342 OBP, a 24.8 K percentage in 28 games
Julio Borbon, Texas Rangers: .193 with zero home runs, a .212 OBP, a 19. K percentage in 24 games
All of these talented players were projected to have breakout seasons in 2010 and as you can see, they all have struggled out of the gate. Now of course things can change over an 162 game schedule, but their starts don’t look promising.
Out of these four players, the one I would be most concerned with is Maybin. He concerns me for two reasons:
1. As I wrote earlier in the week, Maybin doesn’t appear to have much of an approach at the plate. I think the word that would best describe Maybin in the batter’s box would be “indecisive.”
With Maybin’s leg kick, his timing has to be perfect on fastballs and more importantly on breaking pitches. His poor timing at the plate would his explain his -3.1 wSL on the season, which is the seventh worst amongst all major league hitters.
For those of you not familiar with what wSL means, it’s Runs Above Average on that particular pitch. In this case the pitch is a slider.
2. Despite being an organization known for grooming young stars, they are also an organization that has very little patience. I think the Marlins are starting to lose patience with Maybin.
The Marlins already benched Maybin for last night’s game against the San Francisco Giants and I wonder if that will continue moving forward.
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