Seriously – call people out for booing upton? Im not saying i’m one of those that are booing him but fans should have the ability to show their distaste for someone who is grossly underachieving. Sure, he should progress to the mean; but as of right now, he is hitting first, playing poorly, and that’s about it. I know this site loves to suck bj off, but the truth is that he is not playing well, and fans should treat him as such. Has he really put up a track record to back his poor play? Very doubtful.

That’s .666 forever, if you’ll recall. Clearly this man-child has sold his soul to the devil to acquire his tremendous batting abilities.

He’s given every benefit of the doubt in the world when struggling and then treated like “black jesus” when he has a good series. On the other hand, CC got crapped all over last season when he was struggling.

You may not have been “booing” him, but Erik you were pretty jumpy when it came to Crawford earlier this year. 14 games into the season you wrote….

Simply put, Carl Crawford has been a black hole in the Rays lineup thus far.,,,,I fear that Crawford is going to start pressing, if he hasn’t already, and that’s just going to make things worse. Maybe a temporary drop in the order to 6th or 7th where there’s less pressure to perform is what Crawford needs to get his bat back on track.

Everything you said in the piece was true – but so has many of the criticisms of Upton’s production to this point as well. As you were in that piece, it’s easy to become frustrated and criticize the players you follow. Heck that was only after 15 games – not almost 50 like it has been with Upton.

No doubt about that. As ReasonableDoubt said it may have something to do with CCs lack of desire to do things to help the team (change spots in the batting order, play CF), but the truth of the matter is the hate extended far beyond that. Also if we bash CC for that then we have to bash BJ for the “laziness”. Yes it was WAY overblown, but so was the CC thing. BJ did get benched for not running out balls.

And we also can’t bring up defense because CC plays great defense also. So that cannot be the reason for the disparity. I think the disparity of treatment is mainly for two reasons. First and foremost there is just definite bias. The monster has grown and now you have to stick with the path you’ve gone. However I think the main difference is that there is a bit of a difference in “process” (at least there was) between the two players and the quite a few people on this blog gravitate towards the process BJ employs rather than CC. CC typically is a hacker, very impatient and swings out of the zone a lot. BJ is far more patient. The folks on this board really cherish the way BJ approaches that. I get it and I agree with that. I just don’t put that much weight on it. It is part of the picture. For example BJ leaves the bat on his shoulder a bit too much and swings through meatballs quite a bit. That is another part of the picture.

BJ is a hard case to figure out due to his injuries. The bulk of his processes are good, but his results have been poor for the most part (at the dish). At what point do we realize that we may be missing something in terms of evaluating the process? But he has been hurt. It is an enigma thats for sure.

Although there is certainly a double standard.

I love both players equally. And thank god I kept BJ on my fantasy squad.

I don’t think I’ve heard anyone boo Upton. I have heard people clamoring for him to be moved down in the order. Which, using conventional baseball wisdom and not the “lineups don’t matter” paradigm, is what you do when your leadoff guy is hitting a buck-fifty. But everybody wants BJ to do well.

Lets not be unthankful A-Hole fans like the Yankees and other teams….Every player goes through a slump and B.J’s D makes up for it…Chill Tampa