David Ortiz

Everyone was so happy for David Ortiz when he hit his first his first home run of the season. Everyone was pulling for him. Everyone was hoping that with that monkey off his back that Ortiz would break out of his slump. Now everybody is asking, "What are we going to do about Ortiz?"

Drop him down in the order? You can't have your number 3 hitter struggling to hit .200. Drop him down to Pawtucket or Portland to let him get his stroke back? But what if he struggles against minor league pitching too? Wouldn't that just crush his confidence? Should the team just face the fact that Ortiz may be done and move on? This last question may be the hardest. Ortiz is owed so much for the success of two World Series Champions. He's our Willie Stargell. You just don't show Willie Stargell the door. Should the Red Sox just keep him where he is and hope he has to at least get better because it would be hard to do any worse?

In all of baseball there are only 14 players who start on a regular basis that have a worse OPS than Ortiz. The names include the usual suspects like middle infielders Alexei Ramirez, Jose Lopez, Kaz Matsui, Ty Wiggington, Orlando Cabrera and Nick Punto; catchers Jason Kendall and Dioner Navarro; plus struggling youngsters BJ Upton, Chris Young, Josh Fields and Garrett Atkins. Then you have the cases of veterans who used to be sluggers like Adrian Beltre and Brian Giles.

These last two names probably have the most similarity to Ortiz. You have Giles who started off as the number 3 hitter for the Padres and who I think is cooked. I also have long held suspicions that Giles may have used performance enhancing drugs. I'd be stupid to think that others don't hold the same suspicions about Ortiz. The Padres at least have dropped Giles down in the batting order but Giles is 38-years old. At that age who really gets surprised when your skills fall off a cliff? Beltre? He's just 30 and the Mariners have moved him around a couple times in the line-up. Beltre also has that one Brady Anderson-like 48 home runs back in 2004.

Whatever the answer is to what to do with Ortiz. I just hope Ortiz realizes that he shouldn't be counting on the Red Sox picking up his 2011 option.

Brian Giles and the Padres

The cash-strapped Padres really want to trade Jake Peavy to get back some prospects and more importantly shed the rest of Peavy's contract. They would also like to trade Brian Giles and avoid having to pay the rest of Giles $9 million contract for 2009. I have no sympathy for Padres GM Kevin Towers when it comes to Giles. He did not have to exercise Giles 2009 team option. In fact doing so was plain stupid as highlighted by the fact that this is Giles current stat line:

Brian Giles - .170 BA / .269 OBP / .248 SLG / .517 OPS

That's awful. You easily could have gotten a AAAA player to post those types of numbers at a minimum salary. Of course since Giles is a 10/5 guy he'll now veto any trade as well (like he did last year when the Padres tried to trade him to Boston). The Padres have to pray their highest paid employee (Giles actually makes more than Peavy at least for this year) breaks out of what they hope is a slump. Personally - I don't think it is a slump.

The Padres picked up Brian Giles $9 million option for 2009 because they thought that it would be difficult to find a hitter of his caliber for $9 million. Bobby Abreu signed a one-year deal with the Angels for $5 million and is a much better hitter.

I have no sympathy for Kevin Towers.

Baseball Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous baseball thoughts and observations.

I stand behind this morning's observation that there is something fishy to the way Barry Bonds was voted into the starting line-up for the National League. I know that the Giants and Fox Sports wanted Bonds in the game but the league has rules about ballot stuffing. Unfortunately I think those rules say that you can vote up to 25,000 times per person. So that means just 10 people could have accounted for those 250,000 votes that was the difference. Remember that when some writes about or talks about Bonds being voted in by "the fans" or that the "people have spoken"... Scott Miller had a phrase I wish I had not read at the end of his latest offering. Speaking about the Padres' Brian Giles he writes that Giles has a "penchant for nude clubhouse hugs." Whoa - file that under way too much information... I guess Crash Davis is not managing in Tampa Bay. In Bull Durham Crash had the under-rated and under-remembered quote, "Don't try to strike everybody out. Strikeouts are boring! Besides that, they're fascist. Throw some ground balls - it's more democratic." Well the Devil Ray pitchers lead the AL in strikeouts with 575 so far this season (but they also have the highest ERA with 5.57).... Just sayin' - Roger Clemens 5.32 ERA - Julian Tavarez 4.39 ERA...