Print this Article
 E-mail this Article

The Pujols Awards: Week 18

The Alberts

I have a nomination for a (Albert) Pujols award—Liz Wallace and Mallory Holtman. If you read the following article, you will be able to see quite easily why they deserve to get this award.

The Luis

I would like to nominate Darrin Fletcher, ex-catcher for the Jays and their current Midwest analyst, for insolence and indolence. All last week I had to suffer through his verbal meanderings during Jays games and I blame him personally for the team’s recent losing skid. During a recent Blue Jays game against the Royals, David Eckstein fouled a ball back into the stands. Campbell, the play-by-play guy, sounded alarm because it appeared to hit a little girl in the stands. This prompted the Fletch to say, “she’ll shake it off.”

Fletcher immediately followed this weird comment with another witless remark. He actually wondered aloud why Royals manager Trey Hillman (who managed in Japan, which Fletch found funny, causing him to make some unintelligible remark that probably offended the entire country) would not just put eight players on the right side of the diamond. I’m not sure if the Fletch realizes what that might mean, or if he was even joking, but I bet it would take him a good inning and a half for him to figure out the reason for all the passed balls. As a former catcher, you'd think he'd understand that positioning himself in shallow right field is probably not a good thing for the pitcher.

Honestly I don’t know what is worse: the Fletch’s insolence in the face of possible injury, or his indolence when it comes to analyzing baseball games. Either way, I am seriously fatigued from his analysis and think he deserves a Luis.

Here's a Luis for "Luis" Pinella, manager of the Cubs, who jumped all over a radio reporter the other night for having the temerity to ask an impertinent question. Had the manager, the reporter inquired, considered lifting gimpy-legged, hours-off-the-DL Alfonso Soriano for a defensive replacement, with the Cubs leading by two in the ninth, at home, before his flyball misplay that wound up costing the Cubs that day's game?

Fumed Pinella the next day, "The question that was asked, the guy that asked it knew the answer before I had to answer it. Why ask it? Why can't he just report the news instead of try to create the news?

"I'm not going to take Soriano out for defense. He knows it. You know it. And unless it's a double-switch, that's the only way he's going to come out of a ballgame. Everybody knows that. You don't take superstar players out of the lineup...."

Uh, Barry Bonds, speaking of superstar left fielders? Teddy "Take Him Out of the Ballgame" Williams?

Soriano, understand, is a staggeringly inept left fielder—think Carlos Lee without the gracefulness—stationed there because the National League doesn't have the DH and because he was even worse in previous incarnations as a second baseman and center fielder. He is by far, far the worst left fielder in the league, according to the Revised Zone Ratings you can find on the Hardball Times site. If you could, you'd take him out for a defensive replacement before you handed in the lineup card.

The night after Pinella's rant, Soriano played two fly balls into hits in the same inning.

On the hand, to be fair, he is hitting .164. You don't take superstar ballplayers out of the lineup.

The "Manny Being Manny"