Reds find huge potential in Drew Stubbs
By HAL MCCOY
FoxSportsOhio.com
Jan. 28, 2011
Drew Stubbs is trapped inside a baseball body blessed with speed and power.
Is he a power hitter? Is he a leadoff hitter? Is he both? Can he do both?
The Cincinnati Reds want Stubbs to use his bullet-train speed to bat leadoff. Is his power a detriment for that spot in the order?
Rickey Henderson, one of baseball’s best ever leadoff hitters, combined power and speed.
The major difference is that Stubbs owns a propensity for striking out – 168 times in 538 plate appearances last season. He batted .255, but when he didn’t strike out, when he put the ball in play, he hit .405.
His on-base average last season was .329. When that is placed against Henderson’s .401 on-base average over 25 years, it is a lighter shade of pale.
While it is ludicrous to compare a 26-year-old player with one full year in the majors to a Hall of Famer who played 25 years, Stubbs has the talent and physique to be a Henderson-type leadoff hitter.
Yet manager Dusty Baker says a top priority this spring is to find a leadoff hitter, so Stubbs isn’t His Guy just yet.
At 6-feet-4, Stubbs has the stature of a power hitter. At 205 pounds on a sinewy body, he also is constructed for speed, which he showed in stealing 30 bases last season.
“No doubt Stubbs has the ability and makeup to be a big star in this game and make a lot of money,” Baker said. “But we’d like to see those strikeouts dwindle.”
As a young player, Stubbs still is learning the strike zone and is learning to cut down his swing with two strikes. His swing tends to be long, which propels some long distance home runs. But it also adds to his whiff total.
And he hits too many fly balls for a leadoff hitter. That leads to home runs, but cuts down on his base hits. When Stubbs hits the ball on the ground, infielders know of his speed and rush to launch quick throws. One slight bobble, one millisecond of hesitation, and Stubbs is safe. Some infielders swear Stubbs is so fast he can play one-man table tennis.
When he effortlessly runs from first to third on a hit or from second to home, he glides smoothly with the grace and speed of a Maserati.
He walked only 55 times. Henderson averaged 88 walks a year over his 25 seasons and averaged only 68 strikeouts. And while he stole 1,406 bases, Henderson also hit 297 home runs. Stubbs hit 22 homers to go with his 30 stolen bases last season.
Henderson also was an adept bunter, something Stubbs is trying to master.
Amazingly, Stubbs is a product of the University of Texas, and his coach extolled the virtues of bunting and used it as an important weapon in his offensive arsenal.
“You had to be able to bunt or you didn’t play,” said Stubbs, the Reds’ No. 1 draft pick in 2006. And Stubbs admitted, “I could bunt, but not that well. Sometimes I didn’t play because of it. And after college, I wasn’t called on to do much bunting.”
He is now. And he works diligently to improve. Nearly every day at home last season, Reds coaches had Stubbs out on the field in the early afternoon sun laying down bunt after bunt after bunt.
And he is no defensive slouch. With his speed, he runs down balls in the gap and is waiting for the ball to fall into his glove when many outfielders have to dive to make the same catch. He possesses a strong, accurate arm and had seven assists last year.
When MLB Network listed baseball’s top 10 center fielders this winter, Stubbs was not even given honorable mention, but with experience that will change.
Right now, he is greener than the grass at Augusta, but if Stubbs can cut down his strikeouts and use bunts as an offensive weapon, Baker may not have to worry about a leadoff hitter for several seasons.
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Reds find huge potential in Drew Stubbs
