Topic: Baseball
Ever heard of him? Probably not. Unless you're a big baseball fan (Red Sox especially), you probably haven't heard of him.
Why the interest on my part? Aren't sluggers who hit a lot of homeruns and strike out a ton and never make it past AAA a dime a dozen?
Sure. Just ask Julio Zuleta, Morgan Burkhart, and company.
But look close at Roberto Petagine's numbers - he isn't one of them.
The lowest batting average he has ever had in a season with at least 314ABs above A-ball is .290. His other years?
Level ABs AVG
AA 437 .334
AAA 314 .318
AAA 441 .317
AAA 363 .331
Japan 452 .325
Japan 484 .316
Japan 463 .322
Japan 453 .322
Japan 331 .323
Japan 383 .290
Pretty good right? How about homeruns?
For those same seasons:
15, 12, 31, 24, 44, 36, 39, 41, 34, 29.
Again, not bad.
But the guy had to go to japan to get his playing time cause nobody was giving him any MLB time.
He finally came back to the US and posted a .327, 20HR, 69 RBI season. His OBP was .452
Which brings us to the real reason why he jumps out at me and makes me wonder why he hasn't gotten a shot. He draws walks. A TON of them. In his minor league career he's walked 1121 times and struck out 1153 times. That's REALLY good for a hitter, even better for a power hitter.
Adjusted for a ML season, that's over 100 walks in a 165-game schedule.
Why hasn't this guy gotten a shot at a starting job somewhere? That's the question that eats away at me for a lot of players. Especially since there are so many teams out there that don't have money to spend and lose nothing but taking a chance on a guy like this (here I'm thinking of Kansas City, Tampa Bay, and, now, the Marlins).
I sent Baseball America a letter about this, we'll see what their opinion on the whole thing is.
Posted by portocac
at 7:41 PM CST
