by Scooter1027 » Fri Dec 21, 2007 2:14 pm
I haven't seen any good evidence regarding the sophomore slump concept. I agree with Yoda there. It's near worthless to look at past ROY winners, as some of them weren't really good in the first place, they just caught a little lightning in a bottle for a season (e.g. Pat Listach).
As far as the defensive switch, I agree with you -- to a point. Billy Hall struggled because he made the very difficult transition to CF, and he was a more than adequete SS to begin with. The change, mentally anyway, was not necessary for him. He would have been just fine staying at SS, in fact, he has more value there. He was being a team player because we had JJ Hardy. Braun is a butcher at 3B -- if anything, that has to be affecting the mental part of the game. Moving to the easiest position on the diamond (LF) should ease the stress his defense brings him.
Now, I think Braun could regress a little too. His BABIP is basically unsustainable, as is the .450/.516/.964 (1.480) line he posted against LHP. Just think about that -- he got on base over half the time against lefties. I agree with StlSluggers in that I think Braun will be one of those guys who always carries an above average BABIP because he stings the ball so hard, but .361 is probably too much. I disagree that Braun would be in danger of being benched, this team stuck through the early struggles of Rickie Weeks defensively too.
Overall, I have him ranked 4th amongst 3B. At the very least I think you're looking at .285, 25-30 HR, 95-100 RBI, 15-20 SB. The upside of course is much greater (insanely greater if you look at some of the projections out there, like Bill James). I think he'll land somewhere between the following two projections:
CHONE -- .293 AVG, 30 HR, 84 RBI, 87 R, 18 SB
James -- .326 AVG, 46 HR, 121 RBI, 121 R, 20 SB
Obviously if Braun posts the James line, he can consider himself a very legit MVP candidate in 2008. I think he'll post a slightly better CHONE line, with more RBI and more R, something like .295/35 HR/105 RBI/95 R/18 SB. That would still be a regression from last year, but still be a player I would want ahead of Garrett Atkins/Aramis Ramirez types.