{"id":243,"date":"2009-01-23T18:37:02","date_gmt":"2009-01-23T23:37:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=243"},"modified":"2009-01-25T19:01:21","modified_gmt":"2009-01-26T00:01:21","slug":"where-are-the-suitors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=243","title":{"rendered":"Where are the &#8220;Suitors?&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We are now a little over three weeks from pitchers and catchers reporting, and check out the list of free agents who are still UNSIGNED:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><u><strong>Manny Ramirez<\/strong><\/u> &#8211; Yes, we all know his weird personality and all the baggage, but wasn&#8217;t this guy THE BEST PLAYER IN BASEBALL in the second half of the year last year, including the playoffs?\u00a0 Maybe I don&#8217;t understand statistics, but I think hitting over .396 in a two-month span and .500 in the playoffs means you&#8217;re pretty good.\u00a0 Oh, and he&#8217;s a power hitter.<\/li>\n<li><u><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" align=\"right\" width=\"200\" src=\"http:\/\/www.blogsmithmedia.com\/www.tvsquad.com\/media\/2006\/08\/abreu200.jpg\" height=\"157\" \/>Bobby Abreu<\/strong><\/u> &#8211; Granted, I am biased because I love Bobby Abreu.\u00a0 But, the numbers are objective.\u00a0 1946 hits, 454 doubles, 53 triples, 241 HRs, 1,084 RBIs, 1,174 runs scored, 318 stolen bases, a .300 batting average, a .405 on-base percentage, and a .491 slugging percentage.\u00a0 He is only 34, and had a steady season last year right in line with those career numbers.\u00a0 He gets a bad rap for his defense, but that is only because he won an undeserving Gold Glove in 2005.\u00a0 He is certainly NOT a butcher out there.\u00a0 He has a rocket arm and is quick to the ball, he just doesn&#8217;t ever go near the fence.\u00a0 Dare I say it, he is\u00a0a much better fit for the Phillies than Raul Ibanez&#8211;oops, my bad.<\/li>\n<li><u><strong>Ben Sheets<\/strong><\/u> &#8211; When healthy, he is a certifiable front-end starter.\u00a0 Yes, he has injury issues, but any more than A.J. Burnett?<\/li>\n<li><u><strong>Adam Dunn<\/strong><\/u> &#8211; I agree, the first thing that comes to my mind when I think &#8220;Adam Dunn&#8221; is &#8220;strikeout.&#8221;\u00a0 But&#8230;the guy has hit 40 HRs in each of the last\u00a0four years and has had an on-base percentage higher than .385 in four of the last five years.\u00a0 That&#8217;s pretty good for a guy out of work.<\/li>\n<li><u><strong>Oliver Perez<\/strong><\/u> &#8211; Again, you don&#8217;t think &#8220;superstar&#8221; when you hear his name, but Oliver Perez is the type of guy that usually gets like a 6-year, $70 million contract on the open market.\u00a0 He&#8217;s a lefty with a proven track record.\u00a0 At the very worst, he should be no less valuable than guys like Carlos Silva\u00a0(4 years, $48 million)\u00a0or\u00a0Gil Meche (5 years, $55 million).<\/li>\n<li><u><strong>Randy Wolf<\/strong><\/u> &#8211; I guess when you&#8217;re a poor man&#8217;s Oliver Perez and Oliver Perez is out of work, that means that you&#8217;re probably out of work too.\u00a0 It just doesn&#8217;t make sense to me.<\/li>\n<li><u><strong>Orlando Hudson<\/strong><\/u> &#8211; A good switch-hitting, defensively capable secondbaseman.\u00a0 And, he is out of work.\u00a0 At worst, he would be an upgrade for half the major league teams out there, probably more like three-quarters.<\/li>\n<li>And, there are plenty of others that could help any team from Pittsburgh to the Yankees.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We are now a little over three weeks from pitchers and catchers reporting, and check out the list of free agents who are still UNSIGNED: Manny Ramirez &#8211; Yes, we all know his weird personality and all the baggage, but &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=243\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[430,429,428,314,433,431,432,310],"class_list":["post-243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb","tag-adam-dunn","tag-ben-sheets","tag-bobby-abreu","tag-manny-ramirez","tag-mlb-free-agents","tag-oliver-perez","tag-orlando-hudson","tag-randy-wolf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}