The John McDonald Farewell Tour

With Marco Scutaro likely done for the year, we are going to see a lot of John McDonald. Why? Because we really don't have anyone else that can play short. Think about it, who is his back up at the moment? Joe Inglett's hurt and likely won't play again this year, and he really isn't a SS, so by default, the backup must be Jose Bautista, because he's the back up everywhere. 

I do think it is just the silliest thing that in September, when we can have 40 players on the active roster, we couldn't have someone up that could play short if Mac got hurt or if say we wanted to pinch hit for the guy. I know Angel Sanchez isn't a prospect, but why isn't he up with the team for this last two weeks. We could get a look at someone that could be a utility infielder next year and we could pinch hit for Mac, if Cito suddenly discovered that pinch hitting is an option.

I'll admit I like the 'pull everything' approach Mac has at the plate now. He is never going to be a good hitter. He's never been able to work a walk. But he is going to get that 'get it over' fastball at least a couple of times a game, because the pitchers know he's John McDonald with the .236 life time average. Get it across the plate. Mac knows they want to throw him strikes. I saw him in batting practice clearly working on pulling it down the line. He has 3 homers in 106 at bats now, 1 every 35 at bats. If he fell into a full time job again, he might be able to hit 10 to 15 homers and have a line not unlike Rod Barajas has.

Yeah I know it doesn't work to just extrapolate that to a full season. Every fan of every player does that. Small samples size warnings are just that. You can't tell anything from them. No, if he had a full time job, Randy Ruiz wouldn't hit 60 homes. But it does seem to be Mac's plan to pull everything down the line and doing that he'll get the occasional pop. Enjoy it when it happens.

Back in the 70's the Dodgers had a catcher, Steve Yeager, who had a great glove but couldn't hit. The Dodgers loved his glove so he played and he developed that 'yank it down the line' batting style. His career BA was .228 but he had as many as 16 homers in a year and often had more than 10. He would never be valuable with a bat, but 15 homers will buy you playing time.