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Jason Giambi homered and doubled yesterday. Guess what? He liked the double more. Read about the Big G’s new approach this spring.
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on Monday, March 3rd, 2008 at 7:15 am by Peter Abraham.
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Chad Jennings joined the The Journal News in October 2009, having spent the better part of seven years covering baseball in Scranton, PA. He is a graduate of the University of Missouri and an award-winning beat reporter and features writer. E-mail me at cjennings@lohud.com
Sam Borden is an award-winning journalist who joined The Journal News
and LoHud.com in January 2008. He covered the Yankees for the New York
Daily News from 2004-06, and has also worked as a columnist for the
Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville. E-mail me at sborden@lohud.com
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same BS as ever from Giambi. He will hit to LF in his first 8-10 ab’s, then fall right back into his pull-happy ways. This is the reason that his signing has been a disaster. $20M+ for a one dimensional hitter who wont even try to make the opposition cover the whole field and lines one straight to the short fielder 2x/game. It wasnt the steroids that ruined Giambi, it was Giambi himself all along.
Giambi can be a valuable contributor by hitting to the opposite field with the exaggerated shift on the right side of the diamond.
There’s no telling how many rallies can be started or prolonged opposed to pulling everything. The name of the game is baserunners and more baserunners. The home runs will come on their own.
“This is the reason that his signing has been a disaster.”
Nope. Giambi, in healthy seasons, has been top-ten in OPS in the league. Who cares if he pulls his homers? He gets on base over 40% of the time and slugs between .500 and .600 as long as his body holds up.
The reason the signing has turned out bad is health, nothing more and nothing less.
Sure, using more of the field will boost his average. As long as he’s not trading off SLG for AVG, that’s fine with me. But if he hits .300/.400/.450, that’s way worse than .250/.400/.500
whozat
His BA is down 50 points from what it was in a much worse hitters park when he played for Oakland.
he was signed to be THE BAT in the lineup, but couldnt hack it so they had to go get alex.
i like giambi but you cant say that he’s been anything near worth what he’s been paid.
“His BA is down 50 points from what it was”
Who cares? When he’s been healthy, he HAS been “the bat”. He’s OPSed over 900 in the four seasons that he’s been healthy. That’s exactly what he’s supposed to do. Get on base and hit homers. A high BA is nice, but when you’re on base over 40% of the time and hitting 35+ homers, it really doesn’t matter.
“but couldnt hack it so they had to go get alex.”
Jason had 40 homers and 107 RBIs with an OBP of .412 the year before they got Alex. His OPS was .939. If anything having to do with Jason led to them getting Alex, it was health concerns.
Giambi has been hurt. His defense has been bad, so he’s been perceived as more a spare part, a useless bump on the log, than anything else.
Like Whozat has repeated in a number of threads, though, Giambi has been a quiet value. And I think that now that he has a new manager, now that we’re rid of the outdated rust and rot which had become the Torre regime, we’ll see something more tangible and memorable from the man.
“a quiet value?” at $22M? are you out of your mind?