Whatever Happened to... Sean Burroughs (IDT)

Back in 2002 there were two top 3B prospects in baseball: Hank Blalock and Sean Burroughs. While Hank Blalock played poorly in his first experience in the bigs he became an All Star in 2003 and played well in 2004. Although 2005 was a dissappointment it's safe to say that he has at least proved that the hype surrounding him was warranted. Burroughs on the otherhand was had just as bad experience his rookie year but really hasn't improved any. In fact so far in his career he has totaled just 11 HR. Before 2002 he was compared often to George Brett, but now it looks like his potential is somewhere along the lines of Dave Magaden... and that's if he can begin to take more walks. What happened? Why has this potential star sputtered so bad in the majors?

Well I have a couple of theories... the first one I will cover today and I'll have the second one up tomorrow.

Theory #1: The Inverse Dad Theorem

Sean Burroughs like everybody has a dad, but unlike most of us Sean's dad, Jeff, just so happened to play in the majors.

Jeff Burroughs back in 1969 was the first overall pick of the second version of the Washington Senators. By 1973 after the Senators moved to Texas Jeff firmly implanted himself in the Ranger lineup by hitting 30 homers with an .847 OPS in an otherwise anemic Texas lineup. In 1974 Jeff lived up to his full potential by winning the AL MVP award and having a .901 OPS. Going into his age 24 season amazing things looked to be in store for Sean's dad... then problems started.

Jeff got homer happy. He began to want homeruns and decided to try to pull every ball he could to take advantage of Arlington Stadium. Unfortuantely this destroyed his contact, hurt his plate discipline, and even hurt his power in the process. For the next two years his numbers were terrible. (BA: .226, .237. HR: 29, 18) The Rangers then decided to trade him away to Atlanta where he regained his old swing for a couple of years (.882 OPS in 1977 .961 OPS in 1978) before injuries caught up to him and his numbers went south again.

Well what does this have to do with Jeff's son Sean. Everything. Now most of the time the son turns out similar to their father (Example: Bobby Bonds, Barry Bonds... difference in quality but they're still the same type of player) but in many instances whenever the father has a noticiable flaw in their career they try to make sure their sons don't have a similar problem. (hence why I call this the Inverse Dad Thereom) Even in players as similar as Bobby and Barry Bonds you still see this phenomenon. (Bobby had a problem with striking out... Barry doesn't seem to have that problem does he?) The problem with Sean is he is not willing to attempt to pull the ball to increase his homerun power, and I think it all goes back to his dad's experiences.

If your dad's a ballplayer you are going to listen to him when he tries to give you advice about baseball. I firmly believe that Jeff during those years in Texas learned his lesson about pulling the ball and while his son was growing up Jeff constantly told Sean to avoid pulling the ball. So after Jeff spent all of Sean's life telling him of the dangers of pulling the ball this got ingrained into Sean's head that pulling the ball is not a great idea for a ballplayer to do. Since Sean was such a naturally gifted athlete he never really had to adapt to pull the ball for power until he reached the majors. Unfortunately, for Sean to succeed in the majors he needs to learn to pull the ball occasionally to get that extra oomph in his bat, but with his dad's advice still floating in his head he just can not accept the fact that he needs to make those adjustments.