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Writings on baseball by Matt Barnard and Dan Stein.
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3.26.2003
There's been news and it's time to get back to a regular posting schedule with the season about to belatedly begin. I hope I'm able to live up to that over the next few days, as I'll be away again this weekend. I really think I'll be able to get content up though, so it's really of little interest to you I'm quite sure. It's come to my attention that we're now linked at the relatively new Clark & Addison Chronicle, a very professional looking, semi-regular blog on the Chicago Cubs run by Jason Steffens. I'm more than happy to return the favor, and it's now linked on the left side of the page. Check it out if you haven't already. Ronnie Belliard's got a job At the time of his signing with the Rockies (back in January), I wrote this: I like this a lot. There's not a whole lot to cover at the moment (I don't really care that Pete Rose is being considered for the Canadian Hall of Fame), so it allows me to get at least a little bit excited about minor league contracts being signed by second basemen in their late 20s. Right now, the likely starting second baseman for the Rockies on Opening Day is Brent Butler, and that's pretty crappy. I'm not going to get into much detail (as you can easily check just how crappy the first 498 plate appearances of his career have been here) about his numbers, but they're definitely not what you'd like to see from an everyday player. Ron Belliard, while far from a lock, is a guy who has shown us in the past that he can perform at a pretty high level. If we look back at the first two full seasons of his career in Milwaukee, he posted lines of .295/.379/.429 in 531 PAs (in 1999, at age 24) and then .263/.354/.389 in 667 PAs (in 2000, at age 25). His 2001 wasn't too shabby either, as he slugged .453 over 410 PAs. His 2002 however, was really horrible, and he's been replaced (probably in part due to injury problems which have plagued him every year except 2000) at second in Milwaukee by Eric Young. Whatever. I don't know how much of a shot he's going to get in Colorado, but given who's in front of him, I'd hope he'll get at least a fair crack. His OBP has steadily been dropping for the last few seasons, but there's got to be some hope that he can get back to somewhere near his 1999-2000 form and be a big improvement for the Rockies at second base. Very low risk signing...nice work here by Dan O'Dowd. Pablo Ozuna's got an ankle sprain, so the job is Belliard's for the moment (though it's apparent from the quotes in the article that the team wants to see what Ozuna can do). This is a great opportunity for Belliard to reestablish himself as a major league starter, and as a guy with real offensive skills, it'd be great to see him make something of it while he's got a shot to do so. - |