posted on Friday, March 03, 2006 9:33 PM
by
Jim
Timo Perez
I think it is fair to say that no position player has driven me further up a wall than Timo Perez. I'd say no Sox player, except that Jaime Navarro still holds a safe lead in that category. At this point, I'm pretty sure we'd have to give a $100 million contract (uninsured) to a player who severely injures his throwing arm in a domestic abuse episode in order to take the title belt away from ol' Jaime.
Timo wasn't involved in such an episode, thankfully, because his throwing arm was all he had to offer. Unfortunately, we saw the other aspects of his "game" far too much. The wet newspaper for a bat, the absent-minded baserunning, the laissez-faire one-handed catches -- add it all up, and Timo's arsenal was hard to top. And by "hard," I mean "far too easy."
Fortunately I don't have to say much about him because not much has changed since I wrote the
most negative piece I've ever written. It falls short of a hatchet job because I defy you to sum up his skills nicer than I did. The crux of the argument remains the same now as it did before:
First base! Timo is not a first baseman. He's an outfielder, and not a
very good one at that. In fact, he is not very good at anything on the
baseball diamond. I imagine the opposition's scouting reports look
something like this:
Strengths: Speaks three languages.
Weaknesses: Baseball.
The highlight of the second half of his season was bringing XXL panties into the clubhouse. Otherwise, his playing time diminished and he didn't contribute in any way, shape or form when the playoffs came around. He was the only Sox player to not score or drive in a run in those 12 games.
Watching the Carribean World Series last month, I saw him hit a liner to the right-center gap, and I thought to myself, "Now he actually drives the ball." He rounded first, then started jogging to second -- only to find out that the ball beat him there. He was tagged out standing up.
Thank God he's Cincinnati's problem now.