Tampa Bay Sports Blog

In my confusion of wondering why Ben Zobrist hasn’t been handed the RF position I must critique Joe Maddon and Gabe Kapler. The charade should’ve already ended by now and Ben Zobrist should be the everyday rightfielder and beyond that I continue to wonder what the hell is keeping him from being out there. The original plan was to platoon Kapler and Gross in RF until Matt Joyce was ready to take over and Zorilla (Rays Index) was to be the super sub. In the process it appears that Zobrist has done enough to win the job in RF, but no dice.

This is the most aggravating thing to me about Joe Maddon. I don’t agree with a lot of what he does, but he’s the man and I’m not so who really cares. I just keep getting frustrated by his refusal to alter anything, even when it is completely sensible to do it.

Just to review some of this in bullets…

• Refused to move Upton from the three hole for the first part of last season.
• Has refused to move Upton from the leadoff spot this season despite Bartlett clearly being the better candidate at this point.
• Refuses to play Michel Hernandez more despite his superior play over Navarro this season.
• Refused to remove the closer tag from Troy Percival despite him blowing up in the second half of last season.
• Refuses to acknowledge that there is something wrong with Kazmir and continues to leave him in games too long.

There is a lot more, but these are just examples of his stubborn behavior. I could go on and on ( i usually do anyway) about these moves, but I’ll just focus on Kapler right now. Why does this guy continue to get so much playing time? I don’t understand the need Maddon has to stick this guy out there when Zobrist is playing so well. I was never impressed with what little I saw of Kapler before he got here (I’m sure the DRaysBay readers remember and will somehow bitch about me again) and I’m even less impressed now. He is one of the most mechanical athletes I’ve ever laid eyes on. His hitting mechanics are awful and his defense is average at best. Can he get some new cleats by the way, how many plays has he slid and nearly fell on so far this year?

I’m not going to reference any stats or charts or anything because there is no need. Zobrist alone is better than Kapler/Gross. I do realize that because of the makeup of the roster that you can’t run Zobrist out there 7 days a week, he is needed to backup at short when Bartlett needs one of his many Maddon off days, but there is no reason for him not to be starting out there in right 4 days a week at least.

Looking at the way Papa Joe is playing these guys it appears that he is trying to be slick by starting Gross/Kapler and slotting Zobrist in later. I would assume he is doing this in the hope that these guys will start hitting and if they (when) they don’t he tosses Zobrist out there. Common sense tells me that you run the guy who’s hitting better out there first and if you’re running away with the game you toss the guys that are struggling out there then, but Maddon didn’t go to the same school of common sense that I did so we disagree.

I will wrap this post up by saying this. Kapler sucks. He is a below average baseball player who deserves to ride the pine pony express until it’s absolutely necessary to use him. Now I know it’s time for me to get ripped by the stat freaks who blasted me before when I questioned the Kapler signing, but if they still want to defend the phenominal Gabe Kapler then maybe they are the ones who shouldn’t be writing about baseball anymore.