2013 Red Sox community projections: Let's talk about Will Middlebrooks

Some of you doubted Will Middlebrooks. Some of you probably received your fair share of guff over that doubt before the year started. As it happens, though, none of you doubted him enough.

Will Middlebrooks was bad. Tremendously so. It's hard to find enough power to make a .271 OBP look anything better than awful, and with his defense not looking all that smooth, the sophomore third baseman produced a season that had very little in the way of redeeming qualities. Even those of you who saw disappointment on the horizon failed to come close to just how bad it would be. There are a few close guesses on homers, but that's about it.

Honestly, we probably don't even remember just how bad it was. There was a period there for about 25 games after he made his August return that he started to look like the guy so man of us clearly expected him to be. That's a period that's probably left more of an impression than it deserves, honestly, since the last three weeks of the season saw him hit .138/.153/.259.

There's simply no way to sugarcoat the actual performance. All that's left to be done is hope he manages to move forward. Middlebrooks has plenty of built-in excuses for 2013, including the typical sophomore slump and the wrist injury from 2012. Those tend to linger. This is not a damning season. He'll have his chance in 2014 to turn it around and show what he can do.

As for winners, well, let's be honest: one way or another, we're all pretty much losers in this one.

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