Friday, February 15, 2008

Not you too Griffin

From Richard Griffin's blog:

The lineup weaknesses are in the task of finding a legitimate second place batter for the lineup, in finding enough lefthanded bats and in not having the lead-footed Thomas clog the bases by placing him in the top four of the batting order.

Though it is readily apparent to anyone who can think, I will reiterate Fire Joe Morgan's excellent point that there is no such thing as clogging the bases. The very essence of scoring runs involves getting on base (assuming you aren't hitting home runs) and then scoring. If you are good at getting on base, then you are a valuable player. That is the end of the story. Being slow certainly hurts your value but it does not make sense to say that you are clogging the bases. To put it even more explicity, try and think about how many times last season Frank Thomas prevented a player from reaching an extra base because Thomas was too slow (which is the only real way I can think that a player could clog the bases). As far as I remember, the number is definitely fewer than 10 and possibly fewer than 5. It is not something I would be too worried about.

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