Will Ken Griffey Please Take Several Steps to the Right
By
Amanda
Posted at 11:23 am
The team's been talking about it since September. The fans have been talking about it even longer. But finally it's official: Ken Griffey Jr. will no longer be playing center field for the Reds.
If you haven't been paying attention, he hasn't been playing center field for the Reds for a while now. He broke his hand a couple months ago and he still complains of lingering pain. The plan is for him to move to right field when he does take the field again.
Manager Jerry Narron made a comment about the situation that I found odd, “We would have loved for him to be available Opening Day to play center field, it just didn’t work out.” It seems to imply that it somehow takes less to get ready to play in right field than in center. Like, if only he could have gotten more ST ABs, he'd be able to play in center, but as it is, he's only ready for right.
With a scant 12 days left until Opening Day and still not so much as an appearance in an exhibition game, it's beginning to look like Griffey won't be ready for any play come the beginning of the season. This isn't likely to be a problem for the Reds, who can't seem to turn around without tripping over another outfielder.
Several young hopefuls have shown their mettle during spring training. Josh Hamilton is an organization favorite and rule-5 guy who's done plenty to impress. His problems with shin splints don't surprise me; he's never played above A-ball. It's a lot more intense up here.
Bubba Crosby is a crowd favorite and scrappy little guy. He's demonstrated his skill during the spring, but may be hampered by his left-handedness. It's not his fault that Adam Dunn, Griffey, and Hamilton are all already lefties, and hopefully the organization will recognize that it's more important to play the best players than to count the number of left-handed bats on the bench.
Chris Denorfia has been up and down the last couple seasons and, lucky for him, hits right-handed. He started the spring cool but has heated up lately. Norris Hopper is another right-handed possibility to take on the fourth outfielder position.
Despite the multitude of young outfield options, it is Ryan Freel atop the depth chart at center field. Many Reds fans have been clammoring for an everyday position for Freel for a while, and fans of other teams who have seen what he can do have been amazed that he's been relegated to super-sub. But Freel seems to prefer to move around, so I bet we'll still be seeing plenty of opportunities for the backups to get in their time in CF while Freel tries his hand in left, right, second, maybe catcher. Who knows?
In any event, I'm pleased that the rumors have finally been confirmed and that Griffey is prepared to cover a little less ground to spare that valuable body of his. When he's back in there covering ground at all, that is.
Mark Sheldon had the best quote of Narron concerning the Griffey move:
“We wanted to do what’s best for the team and for the individual
players,” Narron said. “With Ryan Freel and Josh Hamilton in center
field, they’re two guys we’re comfortable playing it. Freelie did a
good job there last year. We’re doing everything we can to win. I felt
it was our best chance.”
Re-read that second sentence carefully, because that’s a darn good indication that Hamilton has made the roster.
John Fay is reporting that Hopper hurt his heel in Lakeland and will miss 5-7 days. I now believe Denorfia will make the roster as the fifth OF if the Reds decide to carry that many (and I’m still counting Conine as a 1B rather than as an OF).
Fay also has another Narron-gushing-about-Jared-Burton type quote and mentions the possibility of either Belisle starting the season at AAA (since he has options left) or trading Cormier as a means of avoiding having to return Burton to Oakland. There’s been an awful lot in the papers about a possible trade of Cormier lately. Where there’s smoke, sometimes there’s fire, and Krivsky hasn’t made a trade all spring. I wonder if someone inside the Reds’ organization is feeding the beat writers this Cormier-trade stuff for some reason, with the understanding that they don’t quote him or her on it.
HMZ
I’ve read about a possible Cormier trade in papers outside the Cincinnati-land area as well, so they probably are shopping him around. I think it’s not a bad idea. I hope they can get something good for him.
[url=http://www.daytondailynews.com/s/content/oh/story/sports/pro/reds/2007/03/19/ddn032007griffeyweb.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=35]DDN[/url] had an explanation of Narron’s odd comment. When they told Griffey he was moving to RF, he asked that he be given a chance to compete for the CF job in spring training. They agreed. But Griffey hasn’t played in any spring training games yet. So obviously, he couldn’t win the job.
I think that’s why it’s taken them so long to announce it. They did want to give him that chance, but now it’s clear that there won’t be enough time.
Hamilton…I think it’s been obvious for awhile that he’s a lock for the roster, since he’s Rule 5. Unless they find him face down in a bowl full of coke, or his shin splints get so bad he’s DL’ed, he’ll be on the roster on opening day, and probably for the rest of the season, too.
I’m kind of surprised that Denorfia is getting so little love. He did struggle the first couple of weeks, but he seems to have settled down. But no one who has actually seen him in spring training seems to think he’ll make the team.
Except, as noted above, John Fay, who changed his mind and now thinks Deno would beat out Hopper, just because Hopper has a heel injury. I dunno…if Hopper is back in five days, he still has a week of spring training left.
Sheldon posts his predicted roster at [url=http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070320&content_id=1851810&vkey=spt2007news&fext=.jsp&c_id=cin&partnered=rss_cin]Reds Mailbag[/url]. He thinks the Reds will carry three catchers, and only four OFers: Adam Dunn, Ken Griffey Jr., Ryan Freel, Josh Hamilton.
He does say if Jr. is on the DL Hopper or Bubba will make the roster. (Again, nary a mention of Deno.) And that it’s possible they’ll decide with Hamilton or Crosby, they don’t need LLM as a lefty pinch-hitter as much, and therefore won’t need a third catcher.