News & notes
Posted by Andy on September 26, 2007
- Jimmy Rollins hit his 30th homer last night, joining the 30/30 club (the other 30 being stolen bases, in case you've been living under a rock since 1987.) Courtesy of some stats given out during the Phillies' radio broadcast of last night's game, Rollins becomes only the second Phillie ever to have a 30/30 season (Bobby Abreu has done it twice,) and just the 3rd full-time shortstop to do it. That should earn him a few more MVP votes.
- Manny Ramirez returned to the Boston lineup yesterday after missing 24 games with an oblique strain, but he batted 2nd instead of his customary 4th. I assume that Francona was trying to prevent Manny from swinging for the fences and instead just try to make contact, as Manny's oblique is almost certainly not fully healed. Anyway, before last night Manny had just 9 of his career 8331 plate appearances from the 2-hole, and most of those came in his early years with Cleveland. He has batted 4th the most by far, with 5474 PAs hitting cleanup.
- Matt Cain. It's too painful to even go into details of last night's game, but let's just say he was robbed again.
- Prince Fielder homered twice last night to give him 50 on the season, and now he and his Big Daddy are the only father-son combo to each have 50-homer seasons. However, I am very disappointed in both generations of Fielder for airing their family dispute publicly. Cecil has called Prince disrespectful, and now Prince says he's glad to stick it to his father. I understand that people sometimes have differences, but family issues should stay within the family. Public jabs like that only make everyone involved look increasingly immature and irrational.
September 26th, 2007 at 10:07 am
Curtis Granderson also tripled last night, bringing his season total up to 23. This makes him only the 32nd player in history to reach that mark, and only the 6th since 1900. I believe it also makes him the only player to ever be in the 23/23/23/23 club.
September 26th, 2007 at 10:09 am
It's very hard not to love Granderson as a player. The guys does SO much. The same could be said for Rollins, who would be my MVP.
September 26th, 2007 at 10:24 am
You forgot to mention also that last night Sean Green became the 248th Major Leaguer to tally 2000 hits. It isn't 3000 but it is still a rather nice milestone.
September 26th, 2007 at 10:29 am
I didn't forget to mention it...I just don't have endless time to write exhaustive columns. I do have a day job, you know 🙂
September 26th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
I still don't see Rollins as the most valuable player on his own team. He may not even be the fourth most valuable position player on his own team. A few impressive stats, and maybe his defensive position, cause people to ignore that he's a lead-off hitter with a on-base percentage barely above the MLB average. It's actually below MLB average when you consider park effects.
September 26th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
The only guy who can compare to Rollins, in my opinion, it Utley. Those two are tied for the Philly lead with 129 runs created, and Rollins plays a (slightly) more important defensive position.
September 26th, 2007 at 9:41 pm
"He may not even be the fourth most valuable position player on his own team."
You can't be serious? I mean, I know im biased... im a huge philly fan... but that means he is 5th or worse. so you have to be saying howard and utley are better... and those arguments are fine and not where this is going... but two more more valuable? i can only assume you mean burrell and rowand as the last two. and neither of these guys are having anything close to the year rollins is having! comparing burrell would be silly... the only stats at all that he has on rollins is walks and obp, but his 10 errors and .945 fld % would have to have some say in it. and if you've watched any phillies games youd know how absolutely horrible he is in the field.... rowand is a bit harder to push away so easily... but if you take an actual look and dont base your entire judgement on obp then its pretty easy.
a note on the voting: am i the only one who considered any type of middle relief pitcher for a team whos bullpen has really showed up big the last few weeks? meaning: i considered (for the sake of argument) a 9 or 10 spot for Carlos Marmol seeing as hes clearly the best relief guy on the team and when your closer isnt lights out it doesnt mean that the bullpen isnt doing a lot. it would be very tough to consider someone so highly i know... but am i the only one who even thought about it?
September 26th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
ooops... i forgot this wasnt the mvp post...