The Ricky Watch

"All Ricky All the Time"

In today's column, we will update Ricky's standing among major league hitters.

Through games of yesterday (7/5), Ricky was batting .246 in 236 AB's, with an OBP of .292 and a SLG of .297. He had scored 20 runs and, for the first time since April had more RBI (13) than GiDP (12).

Ricky's OPS was NOT the lowest among ML regulars (Neifi Perez, Cesar Itzuras, Rey Ordonez, Doug Glanville and teammate Einar Diaz were lower), but they all had greater run production than Ricky, mainly due to his lack of clutch hitting.

Ricky was batting .223 with runners on base, and .196 with runners in scoring position. In fact, with Runners in scoring position and 2 outs, Ricky is batting .100.

In fairness, Ricky's OBP is above .300 (barely) with the bases empty (.305), so he might be better at leading off were that not the 7th best on the team (and below Johnny Mac's .322 in similar situations.)

Yes, Cholly should continue to play Ricky and let Mac ride the bench, since Ricky makes more money and Shapiro has told him to.

If you look at his last three years, he hasn't been bad at all. Any ideas on why he is so miserable this year?

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/player...4&type=batting

Ricky has deceptional stats.

Very low doubles totals, very low stolen bases, very low home-run output, low runs scored output.

What saves him is a decent batting average and a decent walks to strikeouts ratio.

The other thing to consider is the last three years were his PRIME years, the primest, bestest time in his life.

In that context, his numbers are not even mediocre heading on a downward path.

The clincher for me is that he loses his bat into the stands an awful lot. I know it sounds weird, but, how is losing your bat into the stands on a regular basis a good thing?

In summation, we got a non-power hitting, non-speed, non-bat control guy to replace Robbie. If he at least had bat control, you could hope he might keep elevating his batting average.

The only hope I am holding out is as he plays the same teams and hits against the same pitchers, his numbers will rise.

But he still will have average speed at best, and that is what I find troubling.

Here is a way to compare Ricky to other second baseman.

Find me a second baseman who hits less homers than Ricky and is slower...(are there any?)

Find me a second baseman who hits more homers than Ricky and also has more speed (are there plenty, probably.)

We'll never know about Ricky's "speed". In 240 AB's he has yet to attempt a steal, has only 2 doubles and no triples.

Power? He has 2 homers. But he had 10 last year, playing half the time in Wrigley. All of his batting stats were inflated the last two years in Wrigley.

In 1999, Ricky batted .303 at Wrigley with an OPS of .804. On the road, he hit .214 with an OPS of .561.

His Home/Road splits were closer in 2000 and '01, but he still had nearly all of his "power" at Wrigley, and even then it wasn't much, and his OPS was .100 higher at Wrigley than on the road.

He's a .250 hitter, at best, with no power and no apparent speed. He has the worst clutch stats in all of baseball. He may be the very worst hitter in baseball this year.

Why is he even playing? They could take whomever is playing second at Buffalo right now and bring him up -- he couldn't be worse than Ricky.

But then, we already have a better secondbaseman, right on the roster.

To be fair to Ricky, he has driven in four runs in the last few games. Just before he hurt his hammy he had started to hit a bit, and he has hit a bit since he came back.

I would guess his last 10 games played have been pretty decent, anyone know?

Ricky had a pretty good game today...2-4...scored a couple of runs...

The only blemish from CBS Sportsline is the "Error on a pop-up". Hopefully, the sun was in his eyes rather than he just dropped it, like he did earlier in the season and it cost us a game.

On the pop-up error..
Lawton should have called Ricky G off and made the catch, but Lawton didn't get a good jump on a ball all day. It was either the sun or the stupid looking sunglasses he wears.

That being said the pop-up was definitely catchable and poorly played by Ricky G who backpedaled the the last 10 yards.

I saw this play on WGN. The announcers criticized Lawton for not being assertive enough to take control of the situation. They said that when the right fielder sees a ball he can get to, and when he sees the infielder backpeddaling, then the right fielder should take control and call for the ball.

On the other hand, Tribe fielders have been inept all season, infielders colliding with outfielders, dropping balls and making bad plays. I really think that some of the blame should be on poor coaching. It's true that Gutierrors will never be an Alomar, but the fielding ineptitude this year has caused the Tribe to lose several games.

How much of this ineptitude can be blamed on the individual players, and how much of the blame should be shouldered by charlie and the coaches?

Once a player reaches the major leagues, should he be considered fully trained? Guitterez and Lawton are veterans, should the coaches be responsible if these guys don't know basic fielding communications that they teach you in little league? These guys are highly paid professionals, should't they be expected to work this stuff out between them?

I have my opinion but I'm interested in what others think about this.

In the last week, Ricky's played 5 of 7 games.

In those 5 games, he's gone 5 for 19, with a double and a walk. He has 4 RBI and has scored 4 runs.

What's sad is that these mediocre numbers seem like a vast improvement, and what's even sadder is that they are.