here's to a year of watching pudge gun the ball behind the baserunner at first. is there a more exciting play in baseball than that?
Last year, he basically hit .275 with 14 HRs and 70 RBI. That's not bad. AND he costs less than Ausmus did last year.
I liked Ausmus, but it was irritating to see him not even try to block the plate last year. I don't think we'll have to worry about this this year even if Quintero was starting. Q is a solid backup to have, but not starting material. I'm glad this move was made. Also Pudge can mentor Towles and Castro.
where are you getting this? he hit .276/7/35 with a .713 OPS in 115 games. i think that's a pretty fair representation of what we'll get from him this year. and while i agree - it's not "bad" - it's not very good, either; it's a tick or 13 below league-average.
Its about freakin time! I'm glad the club has done so bad this spring, or else this may not have went down. Welcome Pudge.
Agreed. He should have been very motivated to get to the Yankees last year, especially since he supposedly ASKED the Tigers to engage the Yankees about a trade there. Turns out he was horrible. His major problem is that he has bad plate discipline and gets himself out way too much. Yep. I actually really like him. However, fans will turn on him quick if he doesn't hit and once they see how irritating he is behind the plate. He's still got a pretty strong arm, but his game calling is bad. Way too many fastballs.
On a positive note, Jon Heyman should call up Footer and slap her over the phone for how she ran him down this morning.
yeah, she was pretty over the top on that. i like footer, but that didn't come off so good...particularly bad timing for the signing to happen the day she did that, too.
Don't get me wrong, I love the Foot. She's a total Debbie Downer which is right up my alley. I also like that she's refreshingly honest (whether she's right or not doesn't matter, she's telling the truth as she sees it not what she thinks will make her popular.) I also happen to dislike Heyman. None the less, as you said, she was over the top with her damning of him and national media guys in general. I hate to break this to her, but as big of a shill as Heyman is, he breaks almost every single Boras signing that happens. And as wrong as national guys like he and Olney, etc. are a lot of the times, they got the jobs they got for a reason. She trashed them saying that only local beat writers really know what's going on with the team, and even the guys were backing her up about the Stros having no interest in Pudge. Then, yet again, Heyman scoops local reporters.
He's not a poster here yet....but I emailed my 9 year old the news...he responded with this jewel brought to you by the magic of edit/copy: Awsome about the Ivan Rodriguez part.Now finally we have a catcher who can hit it out of the infield.
Guess I was wrong! Good move by the Stros. Arguably, the greatest catcher of all-time. Certainly in the top 5. Even with greatly diminished skills, he's a big upgrade over Q.
by what measure? http://www.baseball-reference.com/r/rodriiv01.shtml http://www.baseball-reference.com/b/berrayo01.shtml http://www.baseball-reference.com/b/benchjo01.shtml http://www.baseball-reference.com/p/piazzmi01.shtml Possible.
I was thinking about doing that, can you give the link to a website that I can use to bet on the Astros? Thanks in advance! Pugs
couldn't disagree with you more. she is so berating and condescending to her readers in her mailbag column, and everything she writes is with an agenda, and wreaks of a complex of her feeling that she has to go out of her way to prove her baseball smarts as a female in a male-dominated industry. she also has a hilarious false sense of having pull within the organization, which manifests itself by her riding the upper managements jockstraps and touting her favorite players. this offseason, she's trying to push russ ortiz as our 5th starter, and trying to push brandon backe off the roster (not that i'm complaining about that). you're a beat writer, sweetheart. take your op-ed bs and keep it confined to your own stupid blog.
By the measure of baseball. Top 5 is considered an argument for all-time greats. Like Olajuwon is considered a top 5 center of all-time.
I don't think it's arguable that Olajuwon is the greatest center of all time just because he's top 5 though. Some people may believe that Drexler is a top 5 2 guard of all time, but he's not arguably better than Michael Jordan.