Pat the "Bat"

Jim Salisbury tackles the Pat Burrell issue (i.e., he stinks and he's pulling in $13 million a year to be platooned in LF). Pretty fair article. Hits the disappointment (pun intended) and also fairly notes that everyone - everyone - thought the Phillies were very smart in locking Pat up on the verge of stardom. At which point, his career went off a cliff.

What really jumped out at me, though, was the stat that there have been only 74 MLB contracts worth $50+ million. I can't believe there have only been 74. That number seemed low to me.

Anyway, 55 of the contracts went to position players, the rest to pitchers. Burrell is one of only four +$50 million contracts to never have made the all-star team. The others are Eric Chavez, Adrian Beltre, and our friend J.D. Drew.

All of which means that in consecutive years the Phillies drafted two of the four most overrated players in history. Think about that for a while. And thank gosh Drew and his agent Scott Boras put the screws to the Phillies or we'd have more than $100 million wrapped up in these two outfield losers. Throw Bobby Abreu into the mix and it would likely have been the most overhyped/underachieving outfields of all time. The antithesis of the DiMaggio/Mantle outfield.

Incredible.

The Phillies: MIsevaluating talent since 1883.