Well, after the Tigers scooped up Edgar Renteria and the White Sox seemingly have given up their eternal quest for Miguel Tejada, they decided to re-up with shortstop Juan Uribe for a one year, $4.5 million deal. Juan's batting average last year? .234. On-base percentage last season? .284. (.284!) That is awful. One more: his OPS+ was 74. Again, not good.Sure, I'm picking out one year here, but his offensive numbers as a whole have declined each year since he came to Chicago.
But hey, for a shortstop he has a lot of power! And what about his defense? From the AP:
"He catches the baseball, not to mention that he's only one of four shortstops to drive in 70 runs (PostmanR note: Uribe had 68 RBIs last year.) the last four years. It's not insignificant," Chicago general manager Ken Williams said at the GM meetings in Orlando, Fla.It's true Uribe fields his position well, has a cannon arm and swings with some power. And I understand teams can't just simply go out and make huge-splash moves all the time. You play the cards the way they are dealt. But for a team that struggled so horribly at the plate last season, (a team that was the worst hitting team in the AL, in fact) you'd think they might want to move in another direction.
[ .. ]Since 2005, Uribe is second among AL shortstops in fielding percentage (.976), third in home runs (57) and sixth in RBIs (210).
I guess that wasn't the case with these White Sox, though.
Comments (Page 1 of 1)
They can still use him as trade bait (only a 1 year contract) if he stays out of the slammer and does not beat up anymore judges.