Loading ...Baseball Musings has this post about Calvin Pickering, who is now in the Kansas City organization. You might remember that Pickering ambled through the Reds organization a few years ago (four at-bats, one hit, one RBI, waived). They couldn’t find pants to fit him, but I wish they had kept him around. He could always mash the ball.
I saw him play a few years back in a minor league game, and he absolutely crushed a ball.
Hmm…the Reds have had Pickering and Roberto Petagine at various times. Of course, rather than giving chances to these sabermetric favorites, the Reds keep signing the Joe Randas of the world.
In fairness, Pickering has always had a problem keeping himself in good enough shape to play ball. He is a natural DH, and the Royals could have a steal on their hands.
You know, I’m as big a performance analyst as anyone, but I’m tired (literally – not angry, just weary) of the martyring of guys like Pickering and Petagine. (Especially the former). Those guys didn’t get great chances, but they got some chances and didn’t get it done. Randa isn’t a good comp, to me. He was never a heralded guy, but is a guy that did take advantage of the chances he got.
Disagree about Petagine. He played very well with the Reds in his short time with the Reds, posting an 873 OPS (128+ adjusted OPS). It was his second year of winning the International League MVP and he was IL “gold glover”.
What he didn’t do, was hit the glory stats that “alleged” (and he’s not) genius Jack McKeon was looking for. He only batted .258…with a .405 OBP and a .468 SLP. He had 62 at bats…plus 16 walks and 3 homers, 2 doubles.
The Reds just dumped him. They didn’t understand the numbers…but were proud enough to announce they sold his contract for a ton of money to Japan.
If I recall, we messed up on Pickering…and his options and had to waive him.