Bag It, Bill

UPDATE: Some might find it a bit unfair to go after last night’s hero, but I had the whole post written before last night’s game.  I stick by my opinions in this column.

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I commented on Jim’s post yesterday about Bill Hall and his fury over being benched/ platooned in favor of Russell Branyon, but I thought that maybe I would weigh in with a full post on the subject. If you read my comment then some of this will be a repeat.

I stole my post title from a Sports Illustrated cover story from a number of years ago when Michael Jordan tried playing baseball for the Chicago White Sox. SI obviously thought that Jordan should stick to being one of the greatest basketball players ever and give up on a futile effort to becoming a two-sport star. The former Chicago Bull and later Washington Wizards guard took offense and never spoke to SI again. Hopefully, Billy will spare me some wrath.

Either way… bag it, Bill. Now, I certainly don’t believe that Hall needs to hang up his cleats, but anyone who has struggled like he has over the last two seasons has no right to complain that the Milwaukee Brewers, who by-the-way are trying to compete for a division title for the first time in 26 years, benched him in favor of a Major League veteran who was mashing the ball at AAA Nashville.

Jim ran the numbers yesterday, but they bear repeating: a .158 batting average against right-handed pitching and adding a .222 on base percentage against those same righties don’t improve Hall’s case at all. I saw a comment on another blog a few days ago when Russell Branyan was called up and it made a lot of sense. The commentator asked (and I’m paraphrasing here), “How can Hall be a major league player when he can’t hit right-handed pitchers? How many righties did he see in high school, college, and so-far in the majors? How come he hasn’t gotten this down yet? If you can’t hit righties, which make up like 90-95% of pitchers in the Majors… you’re toast.”

I checked and a MLB player will face a right-handed pitcher for nearly 70-80% of his at-bats so the commentator was close. Either way not being able to hit a righty (whether he faces one or one thousand of them) is bad news for Hall.

Enter Mr. Branyan. His numbers (0-5 against the Nationals Monday notwithstanding) in Nashville were phenomenal. He was batting .359 with 12 home runs and 36 RBI in 45 games for Nashville. He had 12 doubles, a .453 on-base percentage and a .693 slugging percentage. You don’t need me to say it, but I will anyways… those are good numbers. Better yet, Branyan is a left-handed bat and in a Brewers line-up flooded with righties this is a welcome addition.

I’m sympathetic to Bill Hall’s situation, but only up to a point. Having a break-out season in 2006 got Hall the big contract. Since then he was shuttled to center field where even as he improved throughout the season in the field his bat was lackluster and even though he was promised this was his last move Hall found himself back in the infield at third for the 2008 season. He has been a team player making the moves without too much complaining, but for as much money as he is getting paid I’ll sell hot dogs if it got me inside Miller Park.

Now Hall is supposed to share the third base duties with Branyan. As the J-S’s Tom Hardicourt reported, Hall is none-too-pleased. Yost was quoted as saying Hall is “very, very upset.” Without sounding harsh…. too bad Bill.

I think I’m on the same page (literally and figuratively) as Jim’s comments . I, too, have been a big fan of Halls and didn’t feel the organization was being all that respectful to him when they bounced him around over the last couple of year. If you want to be an everyday Major Leaguer there are couple of things that you need to do:

Step 1: Play where ever the coach tells you to. Don’t like it? He can find someone else to fill your spot.

Step 2: Play that position well. Hall, after starting the season solidly at the hot corner, has struggled a bit. Two errors in the ninth inning of Saturday’s game against the Nationals almost cost us the game and Hall has 11 on the season now.

Step 3: Hit. Batting .409 against south-paws is great. Batting .158 against righties is not. Hall needs to produce more consistently against all pitchers.

Using the super-scientific method outlined above I have determined that Bill Hall is not any everyday Major Leaguer… at least not right now.

Will Branyan turn out to be our guy at third base? Well, ten years in professional baseball is a good sign that they guy knows how to stick around, so for Yost, Melvin, and company it certainly is worth a shot.  With a young man like Matt Gamel also developing down the minors leagues (his hitting is great, his defense is something to be worked on) Hall is going to need to keep looking over his shoulder beyond this year.

As for Hall, he can be upset all he wants and make thinly veiled threats (“We’ll see what happens the next couple of days,” he said.) all he wants, but unless he starts producing (beyond one game’s worth of heroics) he only has himself to blame.

By: Dan Wiersema

P.S. Hall getting that fantastic flair last night and his (apparently) own-go at the third base steal were both team player and hero’s acts.  He is to be commended for that, but ultimately Hall has to produce is a variety of situations in order to remain relevant for the Brewers’ organization.

I, of course, will be rooting for him to return to 2006 form, but I’m a Brewers’ fan first and a Bill Hall fan second so when push comes to shove I know where I stand.