Time To Sound Off

I don't want to go off on a rant here, but....

Its hard to complain when you're team is in first place and has the best record in baseball. The lack of production from a few guys in the lineup make it hard not to though.

• Why is it that Joe Crede has been given what feels like an eternity to start producing consistently while other players such as Willie Harris, or even Aaron Rowand 2 years ago, get about 200 AB's before the Sox make a trade to replace them? Two season's in a row the Sox gave away prospects to aquire Robby Alomar and Carl Everett and two year's in a row they did not make that much of an impact, if any, compared to who they replaced. All the while, Joe Crede was the everyday 3rd basemen finishing the last two seasons with an avg. of .231 and 75 strikeouts, and .261 with 81 strikeouts, respectively. He started this season out strong, finishing April hitting above .300, but in May he has been absolutely terrible and his avg. now sits at .234. Am I the only one who see's him as the weak link who should have been replaced long ago? I don't understand why he gets all the time in the world to break through while other player's who don't look lost at the plate for weeks at a time like Crede does get the hook after a couple hundred AB's. I know in a few years we might end up kicking ourselves for it, but I think this season our biggest need is a 3rd basemen who can hit to replace Crede at the hot corner.

• I want to make it clear that I was not an advocate of bringing Jose Valentine back to start at SS, but I also wasn't too sure about handing the job to Uribe either. I know the guy went on a tear to start the season last year and finished with an avg. of .283, but that was pretty much a career year for him. His highest batting average when he had more than 300 AB's prior to last season was .253. In his one season as an everyday player in Colorado he hit .240 with a .284 OBP and struck out 120 times. If those numbers sound familiar, they should, because they are just about the same as Valentine's over the past couple years, the guy the Sox are trying to upgrade over and replace. So what do the Sox do? Sign Uribe to a multi-year contract and hope that his one season with them was not a fluke. I don't know who else could have been signed at the price we got Uribe for, but a quarter of the way through the season it looks like last year might have been a fluke, and the Sox are missing Jose's clutch 3 run homers. (Valentine might have hit only .230 but he seemed to come through in the clutch so often...Uribe's avg. is almost as bad and he isn't coming through in clutch situations)

• Jermaine Dye I'm going to take it easy on because even though he's hitting just .213, he's looked better as of late and there really weren't many other options in the free agent market, especially at the price we got JD for. The reason I bring him up is because he has something in common with the two preceding players I highlighted, in that he is prone to the strikeout. If he stays healthy the rest of the year, he'll be approaching 100 K's at the end of the season. This is not what you want out of the back end of your order, 3 guys barely hitting over the Mendoza Line and on pace to strikeout nearly 100 times.
  

We better hope that having Big Frank's presence in the lineup has a rippling effect on some of the other guys because the offense is in desperate need of a shot in the arm. Having him will also give us the ability to ride whoever is hotter between Dye and Everett, and also should relieve us of having to watch Timo Perez sub in the OF and pinch hit, I mean pinch out. Hopefully the Sox wake up and demote him to AAA and he refuses the assignment and is released so we never have to see his hot dog, one-handed fly ball catches again.