From: niepornt@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (David Marc Nieporent)
Subject: Re: Burks and related mediocies
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 08:00:11 GMT

In <1993Jan6.014822.12142@midway.uchicago.edu> thf2@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>In article <875.02LZ300r01@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com> dba30@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com (David Allison) writes:

>>It wasn't so much that they chose Hatcher over Burks.  I think the fact
>>that Burks wanted a GUARANTEED 3.something salary and was offered a
>>2.something with incentives, but turned the offer down had a lot to do
>>with it.  It makes me wonder about his back when he out right refused an
>>incentive based contract.  I wouldn't want to guarantee him over 3 mil.
>>either.

>Burks just signed an incentive based contract with the White Sox -- $500K
>with $1.5 million+ in incentives.

Another rationalization of a Gorman idiocy shot, then.

>The headline was "White Sox seek right-field cure."  God forbid they should
>look as far as their bench, where Warren Newson missed his seventh straight
>season in professional baseball with a .400+ OBA with a pathetic OBA of .387.
>Despite getting no playing time.  He only got seven PA against LHP, and had
>a single and three walks.  Career, in the majors, he has .400+ OBA against
>both LHP and RHP; for RHP at least, that's with over 300 PA.  Okay, he hits 
>for no power, so he'd be a horrible man to
>bat, say, fifth (which was where he was for the majority of his plate
>appearances).  But it's frustrating to see the Sox refuse to give him a
>chance while they fiddled with Mike Huff and Dan Pasqua.

Well, maybe they'll do something *really* intelligent, like putting
Burks in *center*, and leaving Newson in right.  Nahh.  No chance of
that.  After all, Lance Johnson is a valuable player because he stole 41
bases, right?

And speaking of ChiSox silliness, I keep reading rumors about them
seriously planning on using Bo Jackson.  Do they *really* think a guy
who hasn't played in two years, who wasn't that good when he did play,
is going to come back?

I guess I'd rather gamble on him than on the idea of Tim Wallach
suddenly having a good year, but that's not saying much.

>Jerome Holtzman's column waxed poetic about Reggie Jackson, but kept harping
>on his .262 batting average.  Then he capped it off by calling the Veterans'
>Committee more intelligent than the BBWAA.  I think this was Ron Santo's last
>year of eligibility.  I believe Niekro didn't make it this time around--I
>think the first-timers must've blackballed him.

Being more intelligent than the BBWAA is not much of an accomplishment,
now is it?  Sort of like being more tolerant than David Duke.

>In other news, the Braves signed Pecota for something like two years, $1.4M.
>My guess is that they'll be disappointed unless Pendleton is injured.  This
>is the kind of signing that will suck up time from Blauser.  Is Blauser
>really that bad?  What were his DAs?  The Stats Zone Ratings for him were
>slightly above average, which would make him only slightly below average
>when you start counting his errors -- assuming ZR has any relevance to
>reality.

I would *assume* Pecota is going to be spending most of his time at
*second*, Ted.  He's not really a shortstop, anyway, and the Braves have
a much bigger hole at second than at short.  Of course, they *had*
the solution to that hole, Jeff Treadway, and they decided to release
him, but, hey.  This is John Scheurholtz (sp?) we're talking about.

Actually, now that I think about it, this is why they signed Pecota --
he knew him from his days in KC.

-- 
David M. Nieporent   | Is it too early to start making predictions for 1993?
niepornt@phoenix.    | Probably, but that never stopped me before.
   princeton.edu     | ALE: Baltimore ALW: Chicago NLE: Montreal NLW: Atlanta
Baltimore Orioles 93 | AL MVP: Cal Ripken  AL Cy Young: Mike Mussina