Can Toronto Survive Alfonzo?

by user Angels Fan

So far Edgardo Alfonzo is 0-6 for the Blue Jays, but his story this season is worse than that. The Angels released him May 20th after the 32 year old batted .100 (5-50). If I am correct, players batting 100 points below the Mendoza line are not usually considered for a major league roster unless they are pitchers. As I look at battling averages on the 11th page of MLB.com's sortable batting stats, I see plenty of pitchers hitting better than he is - Greg Maddux is 4-21 (.190), Jason Marquis is 6-31 (.194), John Thompson is 7-22 (.318). How can they justify giving up 3+ valuable outs a game playing this guy? Now, granted I have a bit of a vested interest in getting rid of him because I have Adams on my fantasy team, but I think Russ Adams could easily be brought back up to perform. When he was sent down, Adams was batting .258 (31-120) with 2 home runs and 17 RBIs. Granted he was having trouble with left handers (.154 2-7), but .154 is a lot better than 0.63 which is how Alfonzo is performing against any pitcher - left or right handed.

Date

Tue 05/30/06, 10:27 pm EST

PopjonesWaterboy

1279 days ago

Score 2

GMs love "established major leaguers" no matter that they haven't produced to their accustomed levels in some time. How else do you explain Derek Bell keeping a job for as long as he did until he talked his way out?

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Bball3345Draft Pick

1279 days ago

Score 1

Or how about Terrence Long... he has been a productive major leaguer...ummmmm NEVER. It's a good thing the Yankees, by far the highest spending team, have him playing DH.

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Anonymous Fanatic #1

1279 days ago

Score 0

forget Alfonzo... can we survive our bullpen? I was at the Rogers Centre last night and the bullpen was atrocious! I didn't catch the MOnday night game but from what I've read the bullpen imploded and almost cost us that game as well.

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SteaksammichRed-Shirting

1279 days ago

Score 0

They can survive him. They have 8 other guys in the line up that can hit and they're only asking him to be their #9 hitter. A good move? Definately not. I can understand not wanting Adams in the majors. They'd rather let him learn a few things in the minors and develop some more. He's one of their prospects who they hope to count on in the future. But there have to be better options out there than Alfonzo. I don't know the Jays' system very well, but I'm sure they have some minor league vets in AA and AAA who could outproduce him. The move is survivable, but not a good one.

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Angels FanJV Squad

1265 days ago

Score 0

Apparently they survived, but they got rid of him as soon as they could.

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