Thursday, March 15, 2007

Spring training is the best

These days, I've got some kind of baseball on at work all the time. I don't even really listen; it's just very comforting to know that my favorite sport is back. But every so often, I'll zone out of accounting bullshit, and stumble on some baseball bullshit from one of the B-team announcers doing the spring training radio broadcasts.

Fish-Stros, man on first, 56-year-old Mark Loretta ambles to the plate.

Play by play dude:Loretta is an ideal (No.) 2 hitter. He's hit there a lot in his career.

Mark Loretta has done a lot of things in his career. For a period of time, while with the Padres, he was one of my favorite players in the bigs. I have the T-shirt jersey to prove it. But that was a very short period of time, because Loretta was already past his peak when he played with the Friars and he's now one of the least valuable players in the bigs that promises to get close to 500 PA.

Loretta's 2007 PECOTA projection: .276/.341/.388

Loretta is now a middling-rate singles hitter who doesn't get on base a ton, has essentially no power, doesn't run very well, and has continued a career-long trend of being a very mediocre infielder.

IDEAL No. 2 hitter.

Anyway, Loretta pops up weakly to third base on the first pitch.

PBP: So, Lorettta ... maybe not patient enough there.

Color Man: That's, uh ... I guess the one thing you wouldn't want to see your (No.) 2 hitter do ... Patience would certainly be the key there.

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