At what point in time do we need to take a hard look at Sveum?

[Ennder]

It's beyond his current slump. All of April was a slump too. He basically had 2 1/2 good weeks this season. For whatever reason, Hardy is generally protected by this community, while Hart is crucified.

 

From April 24th to June 5th he put up a line of .276/.368/.390/.758 and was hitting the ball well pretty consistently. That is 6 weeks and not 2.5. He slumped for the first 2 weeks and he slumped the last week, he has slumped for about 21 games on the season and was hitting well for 34.

 

Liking or not liking Hardy has nothing to do with it, Hart struggled to get on base most of last year which limited his value a lot and then he struggled this year too. Hart doesn't have any bad luck in his stats at all either, Hardy has a pretty clear explanation for at least part of his troubles in his BABIP.

[SoCal Brew Crew Fan]

I agree with Ennder and TLB on Hardy. The guy has been hitting plenty of hard balls right at guys. I'm not saying he's smoking it, but he's making decent contact and his low BABIP seems to support that he's run into some bad luck.

 

It seems everyone has been open to question this year except Braun & Prince. This lineup is what it is and what it has been for a large part of the last couple years. They hit homeruns and they hit them in bunches. When they aren't hitting homers, they strike out in bunches. I don't see that changing much with or without Sveum. At some point they'll likely pull out of their tailspin and start scoring again. It will probably be when someone like Hardy, Hart or Cam (like Weeks was before he got hurt) starts to pound the ball somewhat like our two big boppers. When that happens, they will start winning some games. We just have to hope the end result is enough runs to support the pitching and win 90ish games. They also have the type of team that can get hot and win in bunches. Maybe that can happen in October ala the Phillies. Is it likely, probably not, but the chances are greater than zero.

[TooLiveBrew]

0 for 28 does though

 

The whole point of the discussion on Hardy is that simply looking at 0-28 only tells you one thing... that Hardy has slumped to the tune of 0-28. Not why, or how, or anything else useful going forward. If you want to start declaring that 0-28 tells us something more than 'He's 0-28', please do extrapolate.

 

Honestly I'm sure you could make a nice long list of HoF ballplayers that endured 0-28 stretches. You could probably even make a long list of HoF guys that went through more than one 0-28 stretch.

[MJLiverock]

It's beyond his current slump. All of April was a slump too. He basically had 2 1/2 good weeks this season. For whatever reason, Hardy is generally protected by this community, while Hart is crucified.

From April 24th to June 5th he put up a line of .276/.368/.390/.758 and was hitting the ball well pretty consistently. That is 6 weeks and not 2.5. He slumped for the first 2 weeks and he slumped the last week, he has slumped for about 21 games on the season and was hitting well for 34.

I think the 2.5 weeks he is refering too is the area around May5th to May27th where JJ had 22 of his 42 hits this season, hitting .355 during that 62 AB hot streak. His other 141 AB's are a dismal .142 average. He is steaky but those cold streaks are bitter cold.

 

He is on pace for about 525 AB's and to reach a .265 average for the year he'll have to hit .301 from here out to make it (assuming his walk rate stays the same). Now I realize .265 is just an arbitrary number but it is pretty close to his career line of .263. If you believe JJ can hit .300 for an extended period of time then his average stat line is acheiveable, if you don't think he can hit .300 from here out then this year is going to end up being being a subpar year for JJ.

[Ennder]

Sure but you don't generally call a guy going 1/4 every day for 3-4 days a slump either. To start June out he went 2/5, 0/2, 1/4, 1/4, 1/4, 1/5 with a couple walks thrown in. Yeah I'd like to see some power in there but hard to get too upset over that and call it a slump, that is just sort of nitpicking at that point.

[joepepsi]

It's beyond his current slump. All of April was a slump too. He basically had 2 1/2 good weeks this season. For whatever reason, Hardy is generally protected by this community, while Hart is crucified.

 

From April 24th to June 5th he put up a line of .276/.368/.390/.758 and was hitting the ball well pretty consistently. That is 6 weeks and not 2.5. He slumped for the first 2 weeks and he slumped the last week, he has slumped for about 21 games on the season and was hitting well for 34.

This is misleading. Check baseball-reference.com's game logs for Hardy. From Opening Day through April 30th he hit ..156/.224/.286.

 

In the 19 games between May 3rd and May 27, he hit .348/.439/.551.

 

In 15 games since the May 27th game he has hit .105/.188/.105.

 

I'm willing to believe BAbip is playing a big role in his season, but for whatever reason his offense has been offensive so far this season.

[liveforoctober]

I'm not a big hidden stats guy... so BABIP and Vortex and vulcan and chimpanzee and all of these stats that people keep pulling out of the air don't mean anything to me... but I do know that JJ Hardy has a hit A LOT of baseballs very hard this year and they all seem to end up in someone's glove. Counsell had a little spell at the beginning of the year of the same thing and I felt terrible for him... but it seems like Hardy has been in that curse all season...

[TheCrew07]

I'm not a big hidden stats guy... so BABIP and Vortex and vulcan and chimpanzee and all of these stats that people keep pulling out of the air don't mean anything to me...

you had me at vortex... that was funny.

[TooLiveBrew]

Yeah, that was great, liveforoctober! http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif Nice to see J.J. find some turf with his hits tonight.

 

 

HOLY cow, look at that Crew07 avatar. I'm going to go cry myself to sleep out of envy.

[mletto157]

Liking or not liking Hardy has nothing to do with it, Hart struggled to get on base most of last year which limited his value a lot and then he struggled this year too. Hart doesn't have any bad luck in his stats at all either, Hardy has a pretty clear explanation for at least part of his troubles in his BABIP.

I agree. And I would also like to add that comparing the offensive production of a corner outfielder to a shortstop shouldn't even be allowed. Shortstop is a premium defensive position and getting above average offensive production there is a bonus. Corner outfield is pretty low on the defensive spectrum and therefore is a position where high offensive production is important. Corey Hart should be having more animosity directed at him because corner outfielders are a dime a dozen and he needs to produce to remain an asset to this team. JJ Hardy is an asset to this team, even when his offense isn't all there because he is an above average defender at a premium defensive position. The offense that he has proven to provide is a huge bonus and will be needed later in the year to remain in the playoff picture. JJ would be an asset to most teams in the MLB.