Brentz will be a minor league FA after this season, yes? I'm not entirely familiar with the rules there, but he's been in the minors for seven years, and I think that qualifies.
Yeah, unless they put him on the 40. I think it's pretty lame they aren't giving him a chance either but context does matter. Brentz is 28 and has spent the last 5 (6 if you want to include 2011's 5 PA) years in AAA and had struggled to put anything together until now. Every minor league team seems to have has that one older guy in AAA who lights it up. Chances are Brentz is just the next Kung Fu Izzy or Julio Zuleta and not the next Brandon Moss. He's really not all that different than
Jesse Jeremy Barfield and no one is glamouring for
Jesse Jeremy Barfield.
That, and there's also the chance that DD is lying and we'll see Brentz up in a week. He lied about Devers.
Someone also asked if Brentz finished the year cold, and he did. SSS and all, but in his last 40 PA, he hit .158/.200/.263. I doubt the Redsox put much weight into 40 PA though. SInce adding the toe tap, in a sample size is 377 PA (including those last 40), his slash line was .304/.369/.605 on a .326 BAbip and a 9.2% BB rate/21.0% K rate.
For the entire year (which includes pre toe tap), he was .279/.380/.577 in 121 PA vs L, and .269/.319/.514 in 373 PA vs R. If you break out his production by month, we may see why DD isn't bothering to call him up.
April: .607 OPS 76 PA
May: .794, 72 PA
June: 1.161, 114 PA
July: .844, 100 PA
August: .822, 114 PA
Sept: .748, 18 PA.
He had an amazing stretch from 5/24-7/2 where he slashed .376/.458/.780, .389 BAbip with
19bb/24k, 11 doubles, 1 triple and 14 HRs in 154 PA. From that point on, he hit .258/.308/.488, .291 BAbip,
15bb/55k, 9 doubles, 13 HRs in 224 PA. He was still hitting for power (Can't expect him to ISO over .400 and .230 is pretty good) but was walking less than half the time while striking out 50% more often than his hot streak. For reference, Barfield hit .293/.368/.589 for the season in 399 PA. Granted Portland isn't Pawtucket but the difference isn't that great and it's probably even less for guys as old as Brentz and Barfield. Barfield also had 2 different stretches, one in which he hit 9 HRs in 13 games in July and another where he ended the year hitting 5 HRs in 5 games. From June 29th on, he slashed .301/.390/.644 on a .306 BAbip with 27bb/57k, 12 doubles and 23 HRs in 272 PA.
Still, I'd like to see Brentz get a chance. At the very least, he should provide some power against lefties. Barfield might be able to as well, for that matter. .293/.398/.747 in 88 PA vs L with
12bb/8k, 4 doubles and 10 HRs. Compare that to his line vs righties, .293/.360/.545 in 311 PA with
22bb/82k, 17 doubles and 18 HRs. The slash lines are great against both but Barfield arrived at those slash lines in a completely different fashion.