Uggla's Benching Unwarranted

The sight of Uggla swinging and missing has become all too familiar in 2012  (SBNation)

Dan Uggla is hitting .208, his power is down, and he's striking out in over one-third of his at-bats.  He's 32 years old, struggling to bat his weight and enduring the worst year of his career by far.

But he does not deserve to ride the pine while Atlanta makes a push for the playoffs.

Over the weekend, Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez finally benched Uggla, a move some would call merciful given the latter's horrific summer swoon.  It goes without saying that the keystone slugger has been a massive disappointment this year.  The numbers--almost all of which will represent career lows--speak for themselves.  It's not quite the second coming of Adam Dunn's 2011, but it's in the same league as far as precipitous drop-offs are concerned. Over the past three months, Uggla's statistics are downright ugly, even worse than his brutal first half slump last season.  He's batted a pathetic .152/.304/.276 with 90 strikeouts in 243 at-bats and just three multi-hit performances.  His once steady power stroke disappeared, as he's accumulated only seven home runs and 27 RBI.  Because all of Uggla's value is tied up in his offense--he rates as a subpar defender and has no speed to speak of--when he's not hitting, he's not contributing.  The Wild Card leading Braves cannot afford such a black hole in their lineup as they try to avoid another September collapse with four weeks of pressure-packed baseball left to play.

But here's the thing; Uggla hasn't been that bad, especially relative to his peers at the position.  Among NL second baseman, Uggla ranks first in home runs (17), second in runs scored (72) behind Brandon Phillips, and third in RBI (64) after Phillips and Neil Walker.  His 80 walks pace the Senior Circuit, fueling a respectable .339 OBP.  And while his power figures have plummeted, his .164 ISO is still great for a middle infielder.  His 42.4 extra-base hit percentage (xbh/hits) is a near match with his career 43.3 percent mark, so although he had fewer hits he was still getting a good bang for his buck.  Even his 92 OPS+ and 96 wRC+ how his offensive production has been much closer to average than one would initially think.

But wait, there's more.  Enhanced by improved defense, Uggla's 1.7 bWAR indicate that he's played well enough to earn an everyday spot (remember that the average big league starter should record at least two bWAR over the course of a full season) and is actually right in line with his performance in 2007 (1.6), 2009 (1.8), and 2011 (1.6 again).  And while it seems like forever ago, Uggla enjoyed a strong start to the season.  Through the first week in June he had compiled a .276/.384/.492 batting line and was on pace to eclipse 30 home runs and reach the century mark in RBI, runs scored and walks.  A month later, he was the National League's starting second baseman at the All-Star Game in Kansas City, even though his triple slash stats had plunged to .221/.351/.395 and would only continue to deteriorate throughout the summer.

But lately Uggla had started to show some signs of life at the plate.  He'd notched hits in five consecutive games and swatted a pair of home runs, giving him five for the month of August along with 15 RBI, numbers that project to a 30-90 pace over the course of an entire season..  After sticking with him for that long, it would have made sense for Gonzalez to ride out the storm a little longer and see if his struggling second baseman was on the verge of a late season tear, perhaps an abbreviated version of his monster second half from 2011.  At this point, what do you have to lose?  With Martin Prado moving from left field to second, you can't tell me that a platoon of Jose Constanza and Reed Johnson in left is going to outproduce Uggla from this point forward.  I'd rather take my chances with the three time All-Star with five straight 30 homer seasons everyday of the week, and twice on Sundays.

Especially since he's making $13 million this year, and each of the next three, for that matter.