Sexson's Demise

I thought about what I could blog about tonight and I decided I wanted to speak my mind about Richie Sexson, who has been mired in a prolonged slump this season. I wanted to try to find some other occassions in baseball history where power-hitters fell off the side of the earth and into the abyss. I was thinking maybe there would be some logical explanation for why this happens or how it can be fixed. So I went to my trusty Yahoo! search engine and searched for "struggling sluggers". The first link on the results page was an article put out by the Arizona Daily Star and the irony that ensued when I clicked on that link surprised me...

Go ahead, read the article: http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/printDS/77250 You may find some of the quotes in there interesting.

Anyway onto my rant.

As of tonight, Richie Sexson is hitting a miniscule .196 on the season. He's leading the club in homeruns, but only with 17. There has been a lot of talk among fans about what to do with Sexson and his grossly enormous contract. Can you sit the guy or even platoon him while he's making 14 million dollars? It's a fair question, and I used to ask it whenever the situation was brought up. But now, as far as I'm concerned, the answer to the question is a resounding yes. There is a very simple explanation for what has turned into a complicated situation. Would you rather pay him fourteen million dollars to play but hurt the team's chances of winning night in and night out or would you rather pay him fourteen million dollars to ride the pine and have minimal effects on the team? Since I like to win and I want to win, I'll easily take the latter. There is always that "what if" factor that comes into play. What if Richie starts hitting the ball? Well, to be honest with you, it doesn't look like theres much more that we can hope for from him. He hasn't been hitting homeruns lately, his average has been in decline since the season started, and he's striking out against righties and lefties. It's not looking good.

Now I want to do some number crunching because after all, numbers don't lie.

Average:

2007 Monthly High / Low:

April: .333 (4/2) / .136 (4/28)
May: .196 (5/31) / .143 (5/2)
June: .213 (6/26) / .194 (6/12 and 6/16)
July: .209 (7/7) / .199 (7/18)

Note: Barring the first 5 games of the season, Sexson's average has not reached above .222

Career Averages on August 4th / Season Average / + or -

1999: .252 / .255 / +.003
2000: .254 / .272 / +.018
2001: .248 / .271 / +.023
2002: .282 / .279 / -.003
2003: .271 / .272 / +.001
2004: INJURY
2005: .266 / .263 / -.003
2006: .223 / .264 / +.041
2007: .196 / -- / --

Note: On average, Sexson raises his batting average by .018 from August 4th to the end of the season. That would put him at a 2007 average of .214, the lowest of his career and by far the lowest excluding 2006.

Homeruns:

Career Homeruns on August 4th / Total for the Year / + #

1999: 22 / 31 / +9
2000: 18 / 30 / +12
2001: 26 / 45 / +19
2002: 23 / 29 / +6
2003: 29 / 45 / +16
2004: INJURY
2005: 26 / 39 / +13
2006: 24 / 34 / +10
2007: 17 / -- / --

N0te: On average, Sexson hits about 12 homeruns from August 4th until the end of the year. That puts him on pace to hit 29 homeruns in 2007, tied for lowest of his career.

Runs Batted In:

Career RBI on August 4th / Total for the Year / + #

1999: 69 / 116 / +57
2000: 50 / 91 / +41
2001: 71 / 125 / +54
2002: 77 / 102 / +25
2003: 79 / 124 / +45
2004: INJURY
2005: 82 / 121 / +39
2006: 73 / 107 / +34
2007: 54 / -- / --

Note: Sexson has only had one season where his RBI total on August 4th was lower than the 54 he has this year. At career average RBI's acquired after August 4th, he is on pace to have 96 RBI's, only the second time in his career where he would be under 100 for the season.