Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Dennis Dixon MiLB Update: Final


With football practice starting Dixon has finished up his 2007 baseball season. It wasn't a complete success but it certainly wasn't a failure. Here are Dixon's stats at Rookie level in the Gulf Coast League and here are his stats from Rookie level in the Appalachian League. For having not played baseball in something like 4 years he held his own. Dixon's high number of walks suggests good plate discipline. There were a decent amount of strikeouts though too. Without seeing film and taking into account the bases on balls, I attribute that to simply not making contact as opposed to swinging at bad pitches. I'm not much of an expert on baseball but being selective at the plate seems like it would be pretty hard to do after a lengthy layoff. Over time I imagine Dixon would be able to hone his swing and make more solid contact. The question for the Braves becomes will Dixon have/make the time? He certainly won't this fall as quarterbacking the Ducks is his sporting priority.

Throughout the summer I believed that him playing baseball for a few weeks wasn't a terrible idea. Among die-hard Ducks fans I got the feeling I was in the minority. Who can fault a guy for taking a nice little 6-figure sum to play some baseball in Florida for a few weeks? According to Rob Moseley of the Register-Guard, teammates and coaches felt Dixon had a pretty good first day of practice. The article even mentions that Dixon thinks he learned a lot from baseball, primarily dealing with failure. Only time will tell how Dixon's season will go. With the article as evidence, I will have a hard time believing Dixon playing baseball for a few weeks will have a negative impact on the Ducks' season. Fans will want to blame baseball on any negatives that happen but as the first day of practice proved, baseball likely won't have a negative impact on his ability to quarterback.

(Photo from Brian Davies, Register-Guard.)

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