Make Grit, not WAR

I was listening to the “Baseball Show” (I think its called) during Petro’s show at lunch today.  For those not familiar, it’s a weekly, sort of “State of the Royals” show, normally with Jeff Montgomery, but today Mike Macfarlane sat in.  As sort of a gage to see how far the major league club has come since DMGM took over, they went through position by position and compared 2006  vs. 2009.  it was sort of comical that Mac was confused by the fact that some players from ’06 are still on the team, but in different positions:

Petro:  3rd base, 2006 Teahen v. 2009 Gordon

Mac: but Teahen is still on the team???

Petro: yes, but he is not the starting 3rd baseman…

Repeat for DeJesus in LF.  Buck as back-up catcher, etc.

Anyway...

...there were a few comparisons that could go either way, but the one that struck me was when they got to the utility guys: 2006 German v. 2009 Bloomers and Mac’s resounding answer was, of course, the Spork.  It is yet another example of how the judgment of “baseball men” is clouded by words like scrappy and gritty and (possibly) whiteness.

The numbers:

2009 Bloomquist:         261/310/361/671 | .303 wOBA  | -0.1 WAR

2006 German:              326/422/459/880 | .389 wOBA  |  1.8 WAR

In his defense, I’m sure his memory is of 2008 German, who was probably inferior to 2009 Bloomquist, and he didn’t have the stats in front of him, but if it caused me to raise an eyebrow, he should of at least thought about his answer.

Long live Willie "on base guy" Bloomquist