Well, I’m back in Minnesota now. And the fridge is stocked full of a month’s supply of God’s nectar, Black Butte Porter. I also brought several bottles of a barley wine called Mirror Mirror, back with me, and it might be the best barley wine ever. Instead of having an overly strong alcohol taste to it like most barley wines, it tastes just like a very good pale beer. Those are gone already. They were needed to deal with watching the Twins play this weekend.
The most painful part of these weekend’s series with the Indians wasn’t the actual baseball. It was listening to the Politburo of Dick and Bert playing spin doctor. Did you know for example, that Rondell White is the next Chili Davis? Forget the fact that Davis had this nasty little habit of hitting for more power than White and showing more patience at the plate. This is something that’s meant to be. And over at the Twins ESPN Board, they’ve started a “Just past a diving Batista” count, akin to the Chicken Count San Francisco fans add another number to when a pitcher refuses to throw to Barry Bonds. But hey, at least he can field every ball hit right at him, right?
The most mind numbing chatter, surprisingly enough, had nothing to do with Batista. Bert’s defense of Juan Castro’s defense was possibly the best job of insulting the Twins’ fans collective intelligence since Dougie Mientkiewicz. Mostly because the same logic is being used to defend Castro. At one point during the weekend, Bert referred to Castro as a .300 hitter when you take defense into account—akin to Gardenhire’s old statement that Mientkiwicz was drove in a 100 runs a year, when you took defense into account.
Heck, if we’re going to make ridiculous hyperbole, let’s make it as farfetched as possible. Juan Castro’s glove is so powerful it will end the war in Iraq. Juan Castro’s glove is so mighty, it’ll single-handedly stop global warming. Juan Castro’s range is greater than Voyager 2. Juan Castro’s glove will be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize after forcing Hamas and Israel to sit down for serious peace talks. None of the above statements is any more far-fetched than saying Castro’s glove make him a .300 hitter.
The other excuse thrown out was that Castro was just a 9-hole hitter. And all you want your 9-hole hitter to do is bunt the occasional runner over is to bunt the occasional runner over. That excuse works in the National League, where your 9-hole hitter plays every fifth day and is better judged by his ERA. In the American League however, things are a little different. Here’s a look at the 14 ninth hitters in the American League, ranking them by career stats coming into the 2006 Season
Player Team BA OBP SLG OPS
Robinson Cano NYY .297 .320 .458 .778
Nick Swisher OAK .238 .325 .443 .768
Casey Blake CLE .255 .324 .439 .763
R. Hernandez BAL .262 .325 .418 .743
Adam Kennedy LAA .281 .332 .401 .733
Aaron Hill TOR .274 .342 .385 .727
John Buck KC .239 .286 .402 .688
Alex Gonzales BOS .245 .291 .391 .682
Brandon Inge DET .238 .299 .379 .678
Y. Betancourt SEA .256 .290 .370 .660
Joey Gathright TB .276 .316 .322 .638
Juan Castro MIN .230 .271 .339 .610
Brian Anderson CWS .176 .176 .382 .558
Ian Kinsler TEX .000 .000 .000 .000
I should come forth and say this isn’t a particularly fair list. Then again, if it were fair, Castro would be behind Anderson and Kinsler. He might move ahead of Joey Gathright, on the other hand, if we did this as a list a weighted PECOTA list or something. But at the same time, once Rocco Baldelli is healthy, Gathright is out a job.
It’s not that hard to make an argument for Castro being the worst of the worst hitters in the American League. And if that’s not the surest way to improve a bad offense, well then what is?
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