From the St. Louis Cardinals' Twitter feed, we get the news that the Cardinals have released righthanded pitcher Miguel Batista.
I mention this primarily because, until yesterday, I didn't realize Batista was still active. I learned yesterday he was active because he was one of the contributors to the Cardinals' five pitcher, 9 run 8th inning meltdown that saw a 2-1 lead to the Phillies turn into a 10-2 loss.
I saw the "M. Batista" and thought to myself, "surely that's not MIGUEL Batista." And yet it was. Batista pitched for Washington in 2010, which is probably why I forgot about him.
Batista is 40 years old, a career journeyman, and righthanded. He actually was pretty good, once upon a time, and I remember in the early-aughts thinking he'd be a nice pickup for the Rangers. Batista was picked in the 1991 Rule 5 Draft by the Pirates -- he actually pitched in one game for the last Pittsburgh Pirate team to finish the season above .500. That was the 1992 Pirates team that ended up blowing a ninth inning 2-0 lead in Game 7 of the NLCS to the Braves, the famous game where Sid Bream slid into home safely with the winning run with two outs in the bottom of the 9th.
The 1991 Rule 5 Draft was so long ago I can't even find anything online that says who else was selected in that Rule 5 Draft.
I never really realized, until I just now went and looked at his B-R page, how bad Batista's control has been. He's had one season in his major league career where he's walked fewer than 3.0 batters per 9, and he's walked 5.8 guys per 9 so far this season. His career number is 4.1 walks per 9.
Before the 2007 season, the Mariners paid him $25 million for the right to have him pitch in his age 36, 37 and 38 seasons in Seattle. That worked out about as well as would be expected.