Our old friend Marcus Giles is getting benched by his new team the San Diego Padres. Giles is hitting .191 since May 7th and just .237 on the year - that's Thormian suckage. And it's not the batting leadoff thing, which he complained about so much last year, he's hitting .257 when he bats in the leadoff spot, but just .138 when he bats in the number two spot in the order. What has happened to poor Gilley?
His OPS is headed in a decidedly wrong direction:
2003 - .916
2004 - .821
2005 - .826
2006 - .728
2007 - .638
It still bugs me as to what it really was that caused him to get worse. Was it that his 2003 season was really a fluke? Was it the running into Mark Prior - something that did neither of their careers any good?
I think he's proving this year that he can no longer be a starter in the majors - at least not one who hits at or near the top of the order. Perhaps he'll find a home on some AL team batting in the ninth hole. He actually might be a pretty good ninth-hole AL hitter. His Zone Rating this year is actually the highest it's been since '03, and is second in the league behind Utley for second sackers. His error rate is still low - the second fewest errors for a second baseman in the league - so he still has good value as a defensive second baseman, but his value anywhere above the 7th spot in the order is an offensive hole in whatever team's lineup he can make next season (or in the Padres lineup this season).
I don't care what Schuerholz's explanation for releasing him this off-season was, it seems that perhaps old JS looks at the stat trends more than we thought. I didn't like the move at the time, but it's looking more and more like it was the right move (since we couldn't trade him - I guess the rest of the major league teams look at stat trends too). Perhaps that was a huge red flag - the fact that no other team wanted to trade for Giles.