I may be Edwin Encarnacion’s biggest fan

On every team there seems to be that one guy who gets batted around by the team, who falls out of favor with management for seemingly nothing. I watched Ryan Church get screwed by the Washington Nationals time and time again. He was one of my favorite players right from the start – you know, one of those guys you just sort of take a liking to after a few times of watching him play – and I hated that he was never given a real opportunity by Leatherpants to play everyday. Old Jimbo finally got rid of his punching bag boy in trading him to the Mets, where he is New York’s leading hitter right now at .388/.400/.456 with 2 HR and 11 RBI.

Edwin Encarnacion is the Reds player like that. Sure, he’s in his third season as the Reds’ starting third baseman, so he has been given opportunities, and he’s produced, but he takes the heat for everything, from leaving runners on base to allowing runs to score due to errors to not hitting 40 homers a year at the hot corner. The kid is 25 years old – he’s well away from the prime of his career and is going to continue to get better. He’ll be a .280 hitter, 20 homer, 100 RBI guy by the time he hits age 28. You can already see his improvement - the kid is learning to be more patient at the plate. He has 12 walks in 20 games. In 2007, he had 39 walks and in 2006, he had 41 BBs, so he’s well on his way to improving his hitting.

But he’s never been a slouch at the plate. Last year, he started off really slowly and in my opinion was unfairly shipped out to Louisville. He tore it up the rest of the season.

The kid has a ton of pressure on his shoulders. Everyone knows the Reds can’t hit lefthanded pitching, and what is usually meant by the Reds is Dunn and Griffey can’t hit lefthanded pitching, which really means those two don’t hit most of their homers off lefties, so everyone else gets the blame for not picking up their slack. It’s worse for Edwin because he plays a corner position, where big offense is expected from a player.

But – I’m not a stathead. And I know fans jump all over Edwin for his errors moreso than his offense. A .935 career fielding percentage is not exactly great for a Major Leaguer. Last season he had improved from 25 errors in 2006 to 16 errors in 2007, but he already has 6 Es this year, which has earned him the cynical nickname “Triple E.” At 6 Es already, he’s going to have to have a Barry Larkin like year to not exceed his last year’s totals.

One of the things that perturbs me about the Cincinnati outrage towards Edwin is that the kid plays amazing defense at times. They don’t keep stats for would be hits taken away by fielders. The funny thing is before Sunday’s critical error in the tenth inning, Edwin had made some fantastic plays. Who knows how many runs he saves?

It breaks my heart to see him make those errors. I can’t be angry with him. I know he is a sensitive kid and internalizes those errors. You can see them eating at him. You could see it on his face when he hit that homer on Sunday after he had made the error. But his teammates picked him up, and I was pretty impressed with Griffey’s leadership in that game.

Dusty Baker gets a lot of criticism, much of it unwarranted, but one thing he is never criticized for is his care and concern for players. I think those days of Edwin being the team’s black sheep are over. Dusty Baker may just be the best thing to happen to Edwin Encarnacion in his short career, and I look forward to seeing him have a breakout year in which his name can be mentioned with the likes of David Wright and Ryan Zimmerman when some national spinhead is talking about Major League third basemen. Unfortunately, Wayno is still at the helm and is just as likely to trade him away as he is to keep him.

I love Edwin. I want to see him there every day, every inning. He is a vital part of the team's success, and I can't wait to see him at the plate some October in the near future!