First Half Report Card: Part 1

Taking my good old time over the All-Star Break to review the first half of 2007. This will have a few parts. Like, at least three and maybe more.

Jason Bay: If Jason Bay's clutchness wasn't such a touchy and hotly debated topic 'round these parts, I'd probably refer to Jason as "Jason May" all the time. For the second straight year he had a gigantic month of May, going .336/.403/.536 for the month, picking up a player of the week award along the way. Since then he's been frigid and getting colder all the time, bringing him to his current .766 OPS at the break. He's got to hit better than this, plain and simple. His slugging percentage is lower than Adam LaRoche's at the moment. Think about that. Right now he's the fourth best hitter on the team behind Nady, Doumit, and LaRoche. Unacceptable. Careerwise, his numbers have been better in the second half than the first, so I'm sure the numbers will even out over time, but this has been painful to watch. I think we can call Jason disappointing thus far.

Xavier Nady: Chalk this one up in the category of pleasant surprises. We knew Weapon X could kill left-handed hitting pitching, but his ability to hit righties was a rather suspect thing before this year. Instead, he's gone .284/.333/.507 against right handed pitching this year, meaning that he's been a good every day player for us. This leads to the inevitable, "Dave Littlefield did a good job acquiring him" sentiment from some Pirate fans. That's crap. As great as Nady's been for us, his OPS+ is 121. That's good, not great. Perez still has the ability to be a Cy Young winner in New York, I think. This is not Nady's fault and I don't hold it against him. In fact, I like him a lot and hope he keeps killing the ball.

Chris Duffy: File this one under this is exactly what we should expected and yet for some didn't. Duff's just not a good hitter. I do commend him for drawing some more walks this year (21 in 270 PAs as opposed to 19 in 348 last year), but that's just not enough. He's maddeningly inconsistent, and I'm sick of waiting for him.

Nate McLouth: I think Nate might actually not be a bad fifth outfielder. Since mid-June he's had a very respectable .273/.360/.500 line while seeing some decent playing tim. Still, I'm probably just cherry-picking stats here for a guy that's shown very little consistency in his big-league career.

Rajai Davis: He's in the thank God the Pirates exist or I'd be jobless category. He's got no real power, he's not especially great at reaching base (though he's done a decent job of drawing walks while he's up), and he's a poor outfielder. Sure is fast, though.