The Werth Dilemma

by sporemba

Tuesday August 10, 2010 

I’ll say right up front that when Victorino went down with his injury, I groaned. Not just because Shane was hurt, but because, as I immediately texted my kid, “Werth isn’t going anywhere.”

In some ways, Werth is the poster child for this confusing Phillies offense — on paper his stats looks pretty good, but he’s “werthless” when it counts. And Charlie doesn’t have a clue what to do with him.

I’m going to ignore Werth’s pretty stats — the OPS, the doubles, the batting average — because he’s a great hitter when no one is on base. The real issue is that he continues to bat in an RBI position when his bat appears to have ball repellent sprayed on it when there is RISP. (Does anyone in baseball have an uglier strike-out swing than Werth?) If he does hit the ball, it’s a double play or a pop up. I’ve reached the point where when Werth is up to bat with a man on second and two outs, I go to the kitchen for a snack. And why not, I haven’t missed anything but ugly strikeouts and pop ups in a long time.

I wonder when (if) Charlie will ever figure out that Werth is hurting the team when he bats 4th or 5th. I know that others are wondering the same thing, and I saw a couple of comments around the sports sites that suggested Werth bat lead off — since he tends to hit best when no one is on base and maybe the middle of the line up can get him home.

I’d like to add another idea to that. I would bat Werth 8th. There is one thing that he still does better than any other Phillie — he walks. If he’s batting 8th, he might be more willing to take a walk and get to the pitcher’s spot and turn the line up over. Or, if he’s leading off, he’d likely get a hit, and the pitcher can bunt him over (if he doesn’t get picked off — being on the base paths seems to be another issue for Werth lately). It may even take some of the pressure off of him to be an RBI producer.

And when Victorino comes back? I wouldn’t even hesitate — I’d platoon Werth with Brown in right. It’s obvious that we miss Victorino’s glove in center, and Werth is an adventure in the field. Brown has much more upside and a much better arm.

Of course, it’s tough now with all the injuries, particularly to Howard’s and Utley’s power. The team needs to focus on small ball (something I think Greg Gross gets). Werth had his career year. The team can’t afford to continue to wait for him to be the right-handed RBI guy.

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