over at minorleagueball, there’s a fanpost with some good pics from the High Desert/Bakersfield game from this past weekend… Tommy Hunter is a big person. Didn’t realize they played in an antique of a ballpark.

I didn’t realize this number:

He began Tuesday with a .999 career OPS for nearly 400 plate appearances as a cleanup guy. That ranks seventh among 89 active players with at least 300 plate appearances in the role. By comparison, Albert Pujols (.989) ranks eighth, Ryan Howard (.975) 13th, Mark Teixeira (.894) 33rd and Hank Blalock (.747) 87th.

...because I don’t think he would have to. I believe if he gets through this season relatively healthy and productive that he will have 10 times the leverage that Sosa had when he signed with Texas.

credit goes to Washington..

Where are all the haters now?

That’s what I like to see from my team.

I am NOT a fan of Washington but I don’t know who to give the credit to other than him. Possibly Daniels for putting the team together, I guess. But it seems like the players are consciously taking pitches. It doesn’t always lead to the best outcome in any particular AB, but over the course of a game and series it sure pays to wear the other teams’ pitching staffs out. Especially if they come in here from New York or Oakland where they’ve already been tortured for three or four games.

I think if you can field a lineup with guys who are genuinely difficult to get out, you’re going to do well even if those guys aren’t as talented and don’t generally put up big fat numbers. OBP isn’t as important a stat as pitches seen per AB, in my opinion. A baseball season is a war of attrition, and the team that goes up there and lets the hittable ball be called a ball and fouls off a lot of pitches is kind of like a disciplined guerrilla force. Very difficult to contend with in the long haul.

I grew up as a Washington Senators fan.