Domonic Brown says he is looking for that "sink or swim" opportunity
Domonic Brown wants to show what he can do over a full season as a regular.
Domonic Brown says he is looking for that "sink or swim" opportunity
David Murphy, Daily News Staff Writer
Domonic Brown was mostly the Domonic Brown that you have heard over the last three years. Soft spoken, politically correct, deferential. But the former top prospect does sound like he is anxious to be judged over the course of a full major league season, which is an opportunity he has yet to receive from the Phillies.
"You know what, I've been waiting for that for a long time," Brown told reporters on Thursday morning. "When I get that opportunity, when they give me that sink or swim opportunity like they did last year at the end of the year, see what I'm capable of for four, five hundred at bats, then if I fail. . ."
He didn't really complete the thought. He didn't need to. While Brown has seen time in the majors in each of the last three seasons, he has yet to make an Opening Day roster, and he has yet to play in more than 56 games in a year. You can make all the judgments you want on his 492 major league plate appearances (he has a slash line of .236/.315/.388 with 12 home runs), but you can also argue that if the Phillies really want to put him in the best position to succeed, they need to put him in the lineup at the start of the season and tell him not to worry about looking over his shoulder.
That does not look like it is going to happen this year, at least not in his natural position of right field, where the Phillies plan on using Delmon Young, a poor defender who is not a natural right fielder and whose numbers over the last couple of years are not much more impressive than Brown's.
Not to editorialize or anything.
Brown said he did not expect the Phillies to talk to him after they signed Young, nor should they have felt the need to talk to him. He said he does not know what position he will be working out at, or what the team's plan is for him.
"I guess we'll see here shortly," he said. "Whatever I need to do to help the team, I'm willing to do."
The Phillies have often mentioned Brown's health when talking about the past three seasons. A knee injury hampered him last year. In 2011, he broke the hamate bone in his thumb, an injury that is common in baseball and cannot really be prevented.
Brown said he is healthy.
"I'm ready to go," he said.
Now, he just needs an opportunity.
"If I get four, five hundred at bats, I think I can show what I'm really capable of doing," Brown said.
Brown has one option left. If the Phillies use it this year, then starting next year they would have to expose him to waivers before sending him to the minors, which would likely mean the end of his PHillies career.
Does Brown view this as a make-or-break year?
"I don't know. We'll leave that up to Ruben," he said. "He makes the decisions. I've still got one more option. We'll see what happens."
- Zorro, I understand your sentiments regarding Brown. I think Amaro did him a major disservice by practically publicly pronouncing him the "second coming" and "untouchable". And, I agree with you about his bad habits. But, I ALSO believe that Manuel jacked him around, ruined his confidence, and was incapable of relating to him in the manner he was used to in the minors, where he was tearing it up. Now, we all know that the majors are a completely different animal. That said, I don't believe Manuel tried hard enough to "reach" Brown. Let's face it, Charlie was probably pretty intimidating to a man like Brown, who felt pressured to perform for Manuel, who was still considered somewhat of a "hitting guru" back then, right after the team won the World Series. Of course, the label "hitting guru" has been proven as nothing more than self-serving for Manuel. He's such a "hitting guru" that the team felt the need to hire TWO hitting coaches. That speaks volumes to me. At any rate, there are a lot of good players that "came of age" with the proper toutalage. Manuel is not the type of manager to which you expose young talent. That's my opinion and I'm sticking with it. All of those scouts, professionals all, couldn't ALL have been wrong about Brown's potential to reach stardom. Of course, it takes the proper teacher. Manuel ain't it.
Remember, because he was untouchable, the Phillies traded some pretty good players (Santana, Singleton, Cosart, D'Arnaud and Villar to mention a few). Again, the Phillies don't owe him one bit. He has been a major disappointment.— EL Zorro
No chance of Delmon Young making the club as a bench player - he will either make the club to play every day (or 75-80%), otherwise he will be released. He is the last guy you want around if unhappy and not getting playing time.— CosmoK- Delmon Young may self destruct while Brownie FINALLy gets things going (I hope), Neither is a mensa candidate, but , hell, it spring and I am hopeful, Ruf will be the real deal, I am sure, while Mayberry and Nix will vie for the spare busdriver role.— NewMick314
- It is time for the Phils to give both Ruf and brown a chance to prove themselves what have they got to lose?— gardner
- If Ruf can field at least as well as Burrell did, there's no reason not to give him a full shot to win the Left Field job. He's capable of hitting 35-40 homeruns playing in Citizens Bank Park and if he can hit .260, he'll give a tremendous jolt to that lineup.— SteveS11
- IMO players on teams that intend to win do not get "chances" they "grab" opportunities. To this point in his career Brown has not seized his opportunity. No one should expect the Manager to "give" them 500 AB's and no one should critisize the Manager (not even Manuel) when a player does not seize the opportunity. Produce and you will earn them--the same goes for Ruf.
If either or both of them come out to the field from day one and hustle and keep their heads in the game and catch everything they can reach and hit the cut-off man and play sound fundamental baseball--then they get the "opportunity" to find their batting stroke. If not--then the team HAS to send them to the scrape heap.
I feel as if Brown has gotten a more than "fair" chance to show his worth--he has not done it (yet)--you can not blame Manuel or Amaro for that--it is on Brown. For the record--I have not given up on Brown--but it is up to him produce.
— Smoothellc - I basically agree that you have to "seize opportunities." At the same time, none of us would want to be given a new job that came with a learning curve under the condition that a bad month will result in a firing.
But in the end, it's a competitive world and a starting job on a major-league baseball team is one of the rarest of gigs.
A guy like Ruf got people's attention with a small sample size in the majors, so there is an example of seizing a limited opportunity.— CallisonTaylorRojas - The problem with the opportunity argument is pointed out by the example many use: With about the same number of games under his belt, Mike Schmidt was batting under .200. The difference is they believed in him enough to let him play through it. Of course it was also 1972-1973 and there was no reason not to let him play. It's not Brown's fault he was hyped. His part of the responsibility comes with staying on the field and not dogging it. There's blame to go around on both sides. I don't think Charlie is good for these young players. Maybe having Sandberg around will help. Two things I've said before: I don't think Brown has the personality to respond to being yanked around -- I think he needs a regular role for at least some stretch. Second, I think the Phillies hedge too much on these young guys. Better to let them fail early than have guys like Mayberry and Brown now out of options but without enough major league action to truly want to give up on them. I don't think we'd be in the outfield position we're in if the Phillies had let Brown and Mayberry slump their way through more games early on. It might have cost some games but they'd be in a better spot today and I'm not convinced the number of games lost would have mattered.— s
- What the Phillie management forget when dealing with their young guys is their experience with Michael Jack. In his rookie year, he didn't even hit 200 but he was out there every day ans the rest is history. They need to do that with Ruf this year as he has the potential to be the right handed power to back up Howard.— jersey mark
- Lots of things could have happened differently but this is where we are. Brown seems to have some confidence issues but I think he had them before Charlie lost patience while chasing a pennant. DB also seems timid so maybe that's just his personality. Of course, he could be the life of the clubhouse and I wouldn't know it but that's the way it seems to me. I'm hoping one of the vets takes DB under his wing but I haven't really heard that happening with any of the guys we have now. I'm pretty sure Brown is gonna get the chance to play every day and the Young signing was just insurance. I hope he takes advantage of his opportunity this time as I prefer rooting for a guy like him over a guy like Young.— vafan
- i have the answer. now hear me out. d. young should be the full-time DH. yeah, yeah, i know there's no DH in the NL. so cholly will have to employ a little subterfuge. see, whoever's pitching, have d wear a uniform with the same name and number. comes time for number 9 in the order, instead of, say, doc or kk, up comes d! who's gonna know? this way, we can take advantage of his bat and at the same time keep him off the field. since cholly pulls pitchers after 6 or 7 no matter what they're doing, keep uniforms with the names and numbers of the entire bp available in the dugout. if d gets on late in a game, have cliff lee, a fast runner, wear the same uniform, pinch run. hey, worth a try, right?— bubba church & granny hamner
