Craig Wilson, Jody Gerut, and right field
Rowdy has a good post up at HW on Mr. C. Wilson, how he figures into our lineup in 2006, and just what to expect from him. If you have time I'd recommend reading all of it. I agree with Rowdy's feeling that over the last two years, Craig has demonstrated that he's probably not reliable enough to be an every day player. He was scorching hot to open 2004 but he obviously broke down by the end of the year and last year he couldn't stay healthy, though those hand injuries did seem a bit freakish. It would seem that the best current in house option in right is a Jody Gerut/Craig Wilson platoon. In a perfect world, this probably wouldn't be a bad thing. When Craig is hot he kills anything that is white with red stitches and when he's not, he still hits lefties well. Gerut, on the (literally) other hand, crushed righties to the tune of a .924 OPS in 2003 (his only completely healthy year). The problem is that this isn't a perfect world, this is Pittsburgh Pirates world. Gerut is a gigantic question mark even if that knee is healthy. Several Indians fans told me after we traded for him that after his shoulder injury he just didn't look like the same person at the plate. And that knee is a huge question. I saw him play one game in person last year and I've NEVER seen a knee brace like that on a human being before (his pants were over it and it was still clearly visible). And as for Craig, we've all seen that streakiness he's famous for. And a player that gets beaned as much as he does is constantly putting his hands and fingers in harms way, as we saw last year.
So where does that leave us? An ideal Wilson '04/Gerut '03 platoon in right would put up some pretty good numbers, but it would also count heavily on a healthy Jody Gerut as most teams don't have pitching staffs like the Pirates (that is overloaded with lefties). If there's one thing I wouldn't want to rely on on the Pirates next year, it would be Jody Gerut's health (or Kip Wells pulling it together, or Oliver Perez throwing strikes, OK, there's not much I WOULD want to rely on, honestly). There aren't really any outside options in right field at the moment, either. Kevin Mench and Craig Monroe are more or less two more Craigs (go to Craig's Baseball Reference page, scroll down and look at the similar batters; look at #2 and look at #5 on that list, Kevin Mench and Craig Monroe respectively) and Jacque Jones wouldn't be much help at all. The Milton Bradley window is closed now, probably at least partly becaused we were engaged in the Bill Mueller wild goose chase, which just turned out to be a waste of time. We already have Craig Wilson and we know what he can do when he's healthy. But we also know what he'll do over the course of a full season. We also know what a theoretically healthy Jody Gerut might be capable of (I say theoretically because of the shoulder, his injury everyone forgets about), though it's foolish to rely on that. The problem is that Craig Monroe and Kevin Mench don't give us any help there and Jacque Jones doesn't really help anywhere, especially at his cost. The ideal situation would be to trade for a guy like Adam Dunn to come play right, but the Reds don't have an outfielder situation on their hands now that we took Casey off of them (Dunn will play first). The thing is, until someone like Dunn becomes available to play right I'm just not sure any of the other talked about moves will make us better in right.
So where does that leave us? An ideal Wilson '04/Gerut '03 platoon in right would put up some pretty good numbers, but it would also count heavily on a healthy Jody Gerut as most teams don't have pitching staffs like the Pirates (that is overloaded with lefties). If there's one thing I wouldn't want to rely on on the Pirates next year, it would be Jody Gerut's health (or Kip Wells pulling it together, or Oliver Perez throwing strikes, OK, there's not much I WOULD want to rely on, honestly). There aren't really any outside options in right field at the moment, either. Kevin Mench and Craig Monroe are more or less two more Craigs (go to Craig's Baseball Reference page, scroll down and look at the similar batters; look at #2 and look at #5 on that list, Kevin Mench and Craig Monroe respectively) and Jacque Jones wouldn't be much help at all. The Milton Bradley window is closed now, probably at least partly becaused we were engaged in the Bill Mueller wild goose chase, which just turned out to be a waste of time. We already have Craig Wilson and we know what he can do when he's healthy. But we also know what he'll do over the course of a full season. We also know what a theoretically healthy Jody Gerut might be capable of (I say theoretically because of the shoulder, his injury everyone forgets about), though it's foolish to rely on that. The problem is that Craig Monroe and Kevin Mench don't give us any help there and Jacque Jones doesn't really help anywhere, especially at his cost. The ideal situation would be to trade for a guy like Adam Dunn to come play right, but the Reds don't have an outfielder situation on their hands now that we took Casey off of them (Dunn will play first). The thing is, until someone like Dunn becomes available to play right I'm just not sure any of the other talked about moves will make us better in right.