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The Obvious Case for Ryan Sweeney

Now before you all start whining (especially you baseballgirl) about Sweeney's "lack of power", lets look at his numbers....don't ANer's luv numbers?

So far this season.......granted with only 75 AB's......here's how Sweeney is doing. He is batting .320 with 24 hits and 31 total bases. He also has 12 walks giving him a .414 OBP. His SLG is .413 and his OBP is a eyebrow arching .827. So unless my eyesight has gone 20-100, Sweeney is leading the club in AVG, OBP, SLG, and OBP. But wait, there's more.....with only seventy five AB's, he has scored 13 times. By comparison, Matsui and Pennington, with way more AB's, have also each scored 13 times.

Isn't it amazing what can happen when a guy gets on base a lot.....he will score a lot of runs, and last time I checked, runs win games!

Sweeney also has some compelling defensive attributes, mainly that he doesn't make errors. None so far this year, and none last year in the 81 games he played before his knee surgery . In fact, in the 376 MLB games Sweeney has played in so far, he has made 4 errors.....so few you can count them with only the fingers on one hand. But this year he has also been robbing guys of base hits by running down fly balls and line drives like Mark Ellis runs down ground balls. Effortlessly. And he has a very strong and accurate throwing arm.

But he's competing with Willingham, Coco and DeJesus for a starting spot, a tough road to hoe (especially given their contracts). But how about coming off the bench?

Bob Geren luvs Conor Jackson off the bench. Who certainly does have more power. But what has he done with all that power? Well, you be the judge. In 107 AB'S, he is hitting .262, his OBP is.339, SLG is .346 and OPS .685. He has scored 10 runs, and hit one home run. To his credit, he does have 12 RBI's.

As you have no doubt figured out by now, there is another way to go here......Willingham in the DH slot, Sweeney in left field, and Jackson off the bench looks pretty appealing don't you think?