How young are the Cleveland Indians? Their starting lineup for Tuesday's game had a combined total of 508 career major league at-bats prior to the start of the 2003 season. It's not uncommon for one player to have 500 at-bats in one season, so that is a mind-blowing statistic, at least to my feeble mind.
On the upside, the Tribe unknowns hit four homers tonight and beat the Twins 9-6, with their best player, Milton Bradley, out with an injury. My faith in the "program", the rebuilding one, had been waning a bit lately because as excited as I am about the young pitching, I couldn't picture the position player talent being as good as it needs to be to contend. But recent hitting by Travis Hafner and Ryan Ludwick gives me hope that the lack of power at the corners that I thought was a real problem, may be answered by those guys, among others.
Throw in the promise of Bradley, Jody Gerut, Victor Martinez, Ben Broussard, and (yes, still) Brandon Phillips, and you see that the cupboard isn't too bare. Put Burks and Vizquel back in that lineup, (along with their 14,432 career at-bats) and we look almost like a major league team. One that's going to get a lot better.
Posted by dan at August 12, 2003 11:51 PM