10 MLB Stars Whose Slow Starts Are Nothing To Worry About
Cold starts at the dish in April are nothing new to baseball. They are as old as the game itself.
Opening a season poorly is difficult for a player to hide. Bury a two-week slump in the middle of July, and nobody will bat an eyelash.
Begin a new year with a couple of rough series, and those numbers out on the video board start looking awfully funny.
Nonetheless, when a perennial hitter kicks off a new season with an ugly slump, it's hard not to get carried away and wonder if something fundamental has changed about their approach that spells offensive doom: i.e. Carlos Pena's hideous .196 average last season.
By and large, however, the Carlos Penas are the exception to the rule. Good hitters typically shake off their April blues and will start cooking by May, if not sooner.
Here are 10 MLB stars whose slow starts are nothing to worry about:
1. Kevin Youkilis
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Kevin Youkilis is one of many Red Sox who have come out of the gate slowly in 2011. Over the season's first nine games, Youkilis is a paltry 4-27, which works out to a .148 batting average.
Two good indicators for Youk, however, are that he is still drawing walks (11) and that these walks are coming more often than his strikeouts (nine).
The hits will come for Youkilis. The right thumb injury he sustained last August is fully healed and is not the concern here. He's been a .300 hitter the past three seasons, and there's no reason to see this changing anytime soon.
2. Carl Crawford
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Joining his teammate Youkilis in the mediocrity department is Carl Crawford, who, with Adrian Gonzalez, was one of Boston's major acquisitions this past winter.
Crawford is 5-38 over the season's first three series (.132 average), and he's only drawn two walks. Meanwhile, he's struck out seven times.
Manager Terry Francona has thrown Carl Crawford all around the line-up so far this seasons. This may not be the greatest service to Crawford, who undoubtedly has to be a bit anxious to find his groove with his new employer.
Francona's incessant shuffling of Crawford's batting spot sends Crawford the wrong message. It has to psychologically get under his skin, letting him think that his early season troubles are a much bigger problem that they really are. Granted, Jacoby Ellsbury's own slow start has not helped matters, either.
Nonetheless, it's interesting to contrast Francona's decisions on Crawford to his approach with David Ortiz in 2009 and 2010. When Big Papi struggled in April and May those years, Francona still slotted in Ortiz at the three-spot the vast majority of the time.
3. Dan Uggla
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Dan Uggla is in the midst of his own shaky start with a new team. He's hitting .158 (6-38) in Atlanta's first 10 games, with two walks and six strikeouts.
With two dingers on the young season, at least the home runs are coming for Uggla and that is, after all, his chief selling point. Since hitting 27 homers his rookie year in 2006, the former Marlin has hit at least 30 every season.
The walks need to come for Uggla though. He has yet to draw his first free pass of the young season.
Uggla has never hit for a particularly high average. He hit .287 in 2010, after hitting an overall .249 in 2007 through 2009. Undoubtedly, the Braves have to wonder what the ceiling is for their new second baseman, who they have locked up through 2015.
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4. Hanley Ramirez
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Back in Miami, Uggla's former teammate, Hanley Ramirez, is having his own April blues.
Last week Ramirez managed to pull his average up over the Mendoza line, as he now sports a .207 mark (6-29) in seven games played.
Ramirez didn't played in either of Florida's games this past weekend after ending up on the wrong end of a Bill Hall slide on Friday night.
Prior to his weekend stint on the pine Han-Ram seemed to be turning things around. In a 5-3 loss to Washington in extra innings last Thursday, Ramirez went 2-5 with a 2-RBI double to open up things in the first inning.
The double was his third on the season, which is a good indicator that things are just fine with Ramirez, who is looking for his fourth consecutive All-Star selection this season.
5. Adrian Beltre
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Like Crawford and Uggla, Adrian Beltre has had a little difficulty finding his stroke with his new team, the Texas Rangers.
He hit his first homer in the season's second game, a grand slam off of Boston's John Lackey in the middle game of Texas' opening series sweep of the Red Sox.
Beltre has three homers and eight RBI, however his batting average still looks pretty ugly. He's only hitting .189, with seven hits in 37 at-bats. He's also only walked once so far this season.
Beltre has a monster year for Boston last year, which earned him a ninth-place finish in AL MVP voting.
Now that he's secured a long-term deal with a competitive franchise, will Beltre's production regress to the same level as his Seattle years? We'll see...
6. Shin-Soo Choo
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Shin-Soo Choo has been just terrible so far this season, with a measly seven hits in 35 at-bats through nine games.
And, unlike some other slumping sluggers, Choo bats in a weak Cleveland line-up, so pitchers are sure to save their best stuff for him, unlike say, someone like a Youkilis or a Crawford.
Choo has been a .300 hitter the past three seasons, averaging 19 home runs and 81 RBI a season over that same stretch.
Choo has also swiped at least 20 bags the past couple of seasons, and he has yet to record his first stolen base in 2011.
Cleveland's a weak team that is not getting any stronger anytime soon, however Choo should still be able to approach the same offensive benchmarks he's hit in recent seasons.
7. Jacoby Ellsbury
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Yes, another Red Sox.
Like teammates Kevin Youkilis and Carl Crawford, Jacoby Ellsbury has struggled to start 2011.
Ellsbury is batting .156 over Boston's first nine games, going 5-32 with three walks and seven strikeouts.
However, unlike Youkilis and Crawford, Jacoby Ellsbury is not a seasoned hitter. His offensive recovery is not nearly as sure of thing as the inevitable turnarounds of his veteran teammates.
After struggling with rib injuries all of last season, Ellsbury looks to regain his form from 2009, his second full year in the Majors.
In 2009, Ellsbury settled into the lead off spot and hit .301, a 21-point improvement upon his .280 2008.
Ellsbury also upped his OBP that season, going from .336 to .355, however there is still much room for the speedy young outfielder to improve in that department, particularly if he wants to remain Boston's leadoff man.
At 27, Ellsbury still has much of his athletic prime ahead of him.
However will Ellsbury be the next Scott Podsednik (career .340 OBP), a base-stealing specialist who is never able to get it all going at the plate?
Or might Ellsbury follow the track of Kenny Lofton, who over his prime, 1992 through 2001, hit .302 with a .379 OBP?
8. Derek Jeter
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Derek Jeter was awarded (although he might dispute that) by the Yankees last December with a three-year, $51 million contract, with a player option for 2014.
Jeter failed to hit .300 last year, missing that mark for the first time since 2004. His .270 average and .340 OBP were his lowest totals in either category in any full season in the Majors.
He has not a particularly good start to 2011. In the Yankees' first nine games Jeter is hitting just .206, with seven hits in 34 at-bats. At least he's walking, with five free passes on the young season.
Jeter certainly has many eyes on him this season, and he inevitably has a burden to live up to his big-time contract.
Jeter will keep on chugging along just fine and he'll get his 3,000 hit in due time. But will he be able to return to .300 land? Don't bet against it.
9. Joe Mauer
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By his lofty standards, the pride of Minnesota is having trouble finding the ignition on his 2011 season. Joe Mauer, a career .326 hitter, is just 7-30 in eight games played in 2011 thus far.
Mauer is a vociferous hitter, with a juicy .340 average over the past three seasons, a span in which he's racked up 534 hits and scored 280 runs.
So the guy can hit, all right.
An outstanding question with Mauer remains what can be expected out of him in the power department. He hit 28 home runs in 2009, however that this season has been sandwiched in between seasons of nine homers in 2008 and 2010.
Mauer is an all-around stud. He's won the Silver Slugger and Gold Glove for three seasons straight. With the exception of his injury-shortened 2007, Mauer has been an All-Star and a top-10 finisher in MVP balloting since 2006, including winning the MVP in 2009.
Mauer turns 28 later this month, and there's little reason to believe that his early-slip up is nothing more than a minor blip in the big scheme of things.
10. Albert Pujols
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Albert Pujols is unquestionably under the most scrutiny of any of MLB's slow-starting stars.
These are factors that Pujols, who is in a pivotal contract year, would be dealing with regardless, after contract negotiations between him and the club broke off with no deal in place, per Pujols' wish, at the start of spring training.
To make matters worse for Phat Albert, however, has been his very slow start to 2011. He is just 5-35, a .143 average, after nine games on the young season.
Is Pujols cracking under the pressure?
Probably not. He has hit a home run, he's still drawing his walks all right and he isn't striking out a whole lot.
Pujols has always been great but, over the past three seasons, he's been truly exceptional. Over this span, Prince Albert has 42 home runs and 123 RBI per season, with an outrageous .331/.439/.635/1.074 batting line.
There really is no reason to believe that Pujols won't put up good numbers in 2011, however it will be interesting to see if he's able to put up his usual prolific numbers this season, all things considered.
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