Comments on: Jermaine Dye at First Base

By: Rando

Rando — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:57:55 +0000

I watched the Tigs and White Sox play 3 games of a 4 game series (two of those games were part of a doubleheader) and I sat in RF, right behind Jermaine Dye. He’s the worst outfielder I’ve ever seen, and the worst part is he didn’t put forth effort (didn’t appear to, at least). He’s a bum.

By: DP

DP — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 04:30:43 +0000

I think Fiorentino is going to the Hiroshima Toyo Carp…

By: MikeS

MikeS — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:39:03 +0000

As A White Sox fan, it seems that Dye gets decent jumps, takes reasonable routes and catches most of what he gets to. The problem is he just gets to so darn little. How dies that translate to 1B? Hard to know what kind of reflexes and first step he has to snare grounders and line drives. He’s tall and lanky (2″ taller, 5lb lighter than Konerko) so I think he can catch it but who knows how well he can scoop bad throws? I doubt he could field bunts well since that’s a similar skillset to tracking down flies.

By: Choo

Choo — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:03:49 +0000

Even if Dye proves to be a quick study (positioning, reads, footwork), a certain level of lateral explosiveness is required to convert those batted balls into outs. Dye’s lateral explosiveness probably grades out somewhere between Jason Giambi and pre-oiled Tin Man.

By: Ryan M

Ryan M — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:14:30 +0000

Dye was still a pretty good outfielder after he lost most of his speed with the knee injury in Oakland. As he’s aged, he’s obviously gotten much worse, but his ability years back to man the position without his speed suggests to me he has good instincts. Plenty of outfielders have converted to 1B more or less on the spot when rosters demanded it. While this is really a question for a scout, it’s perfectly conceivable that he good be average-plus at first. At the very least, this opens up the possibility that he latches onto a team like the Giants or the Marlins who have (perceived) holes at 1B and tend to value veteran leadership.

By: Jack Moore

Jack Moore — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:19:27 +0000

I understand, but I was mostly referring to how, by most accounts, he struggled at the beginning, which teams signing him to a 1-year contract would have to deal with moreso than the Cards, for whom it was a long term move.

By: vivaelpujols

vivaelpujols — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:49:50 +0000

Skip Schumaker actually turned out quite well at second. He was only -7.7 by UZR at the end of the year, and he looked a lot better than that from watching him, almost average.

By: SteveP

SteveP — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:50:54 +0000

Eventhough Schumaker struggled transitioning to second, second also requires much more athleticism than first. I’m not saying your comparision is wrong though, just that Dye is coming from a position that doesn’t require tremendous athleticism to one that requires even less while Schumaker came from a position that requires a ton of athleticism to one that still requires a good deal of athleticism. Overall though, I think Dye is done. He’s suffered a lot of pretty serious injuries over the course of his career, and I think his body has finally given out on him. Someone may very well sign him as a 1Bman, but I think that’s a mistake. Given the fact that first basemen with pop are a dime a dozen there’s no need to pay Dye more than what the freely available guys are worth, as you noted in your conclusion.

By: LeeTro

LeeTro — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:54:43 +0000

Easy there about the personal experience. Someone might think you can really play…. About the actual article, one reason I could see Dye making a better transition to 1B is his better error rating. Most OF errors are due to fielding, not throwing, so his average error rate in RF should make it better than Dunn’s poor rate.

By: Mark Runsvold

Mark Runsvold — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:50:59 +0000

Dye’s second half this past year was DISASTROUS. He put up a .179/.293/.297 line after the break, which is the kind of bad that makes you wonder if he was hiding an injury going into free agency.