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Saturday Discussion: Michael Bourn's new found discipline?

Like all of you, I'd love nothing more than for Michael Bourn to do a 180* about face and lived up to some that promise Ed Wade lavished on us -- and to be fair analyst from BPro too.  I finally got around to reading the Astros.com piece on Bourn's staggering reversal of his K:BB ratio in the Dominican League:

In the 2008 regular season, Bourn struck out 111 times and walked 37 times in 467 at-bats. That computes to a strikeout rate of 1/4.2 at-bats and a K/BB rate of three-to-one, statistics that don't bode well for a leadoff hitter.

Contrast those numbers with his Dominican stats. His strikeout rate has improved to 1/6.6 at-bats, and he has more walks than strikeouts for the first time since his sophomore year at the University of Houston. That lends hope for Bourn, who at 25 has plenty of time to improve, and for Astros management, who acquired Bourn and Geoff Geary from the Phillies in a deal for Brad Lidge and Eric Bruntlett last November.

I've never seen anything on translations from Winter Leagues and I know that winter league baseball is a hugely limited sample size -- akin to Spring Training, but even less quality pitching -- but it's nice to see that the man can control his destiny at the plate.

My question for discussion is (please discuss, I'm trying to procrastinate on writing a paper -- enable me):

Poll
Do you think Bourn's Dominican League performance will translate at all to his 2009 stint in the big leagues?
Yes
18 votes
No
25 votes

43 votes | Poll has closed

0 recs | Comment 8 comments

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No, it probably won't translate.

But I hope it will. As I recall, BPro wrote a while back that he showed good discipline in the minors. Hopefully, Coop and Co. don’t try to screw with his plate approach – I know that they were talking about how he should be making more contact and hacking away. I don’t think we have any good reason to expect him to suddenly become a spectacular leadoff hitter, but we can hope he improves.

by Only_A_Lad on Nov 22, 2008 3:18 PM CST reply reply actions actions   0 recs

It'd be interesting

To hear if Bourn is going back to his natural approach to hitting without the Astros staff leaning on him to do somethingelse, or if it’s just a fluke.

The Crawfishboxes
A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.

by DyingQuail on Nov 22, 2008 3:22 PM CST to parent up reply reply actions actions   0 recs

Ugh

If he struggles again in 2009, manager Cecil Cooper will have Reggie Abercrombie and Darin Erstad as fallback options.

God help us all.

by Only_A_Lad on Nov 22, 2008 3:24 PM CST reply reply actions actions   0 recs

Indeed

Abercrombie is just the RHB version of Bourn…Erstad just can’t play CF full time with Carlos Lee in LF.

The Crawfishboxes
A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.

by DyingQuail on Nov 22, 2008 3:30 PM CST to parent up reply reply actions actions   0 recs

I read the article this morning...and it's the kind that makes me nervous.

Don’t get me wrong, I like the fact that Bourn’s numbers look good…it sure as heck beats seeing bad numbers out of him in the winter league. But it makes me nervous when writers make such sweeping conclusions about a performance reversal from such a small sample size. Yeah, congratulate him on doing good so far, but don’t jinx him or get everybody’s hopes up. I recall that Bourn was putting up a .350-.400 OBP during most of the first 2/3 of spring training games; and it certainly got a lot of fans’ hopes up. But the competition gets stronger as spring training continues…and regression to mean also sets in as the sample size increases…and the next thing we know is that Bourn’s numbers plummeted.

Do winter league performances carry over…sometimes and sometimes not. Does anyone remember Hidalgo’s glowing winter league stats when he was signed before the 07 spring training? (Unfortunately, his luck ran out in spring training and he was just terrible.) Luke Scott always had terrific winter league stats…and they may have foretold his great 06 tear. The competition probably is more like high minor leagues than major leagues, though.

by clack on Nov 22, 2008 4:46 PM CST reply reply actions actions   0 recs

the pitching is variable but not necessarily bad

Pitchers down there he might be facing this year include Carlos Marmol, Ubaldo Jimenez, Damaso Marte and Ervin Santana.

Or maybe its the team cheerleader/godmother

by ol Pete on Nov 22, 2008 4:59 PM CST reply reply actions actions   0 recs

60/40 nearly 24 hours later

Interesting.

The Crawfishboxes
A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.

by DyingQuail on Nov 23, 2008 10:24 AM CST reply reply actions actions   0 recs

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