Lance Berkman is questionable to be ready for Opening Day following knee surgery last week and Zachary Levine of the Houston Chronicle reports that the Astros are leaning toward veteran utility man Geoff Blum as his replacement at first base.
In his absence, Geoff Blum started in the No. 5 spot in the lineup Sunday, giving protection to Hunter Pence and Carlos Lee, who batted third and fourth, respectively. …
Evaluating Blum by his spring numbers, however dangerous that is to do, he has looked like a middle-of-the-order hitter. He’s hitting 9-for-20 (.450) with three doubles in six games this spring. “If he continues to swing the bat well, I think everyone could see why I’d want him in that fifth spot,” [manager Brad] Mills said.
I believe the word I’m looking for is hogwash.
Geoff Blum is 36 years old and has played 11 seasons in the major leagues, hitting .250 with a measly .310 on-base percentage and punchless .387 slugging percentage in 4,088 total plate appearances spread over 1,256 games. And yet we’re supposed to believe that his going 9-for-20 in spring training has any kind of meaning whatsoever?
Spring training stats are pretty close to meaningless. Spring training stats consisting of 20 at-bats are exactly meaningless. And spring training stats consisting of 20 at-bats for a player with over 1,200 games on his big-league resume stretch beyond “meaningless” into “misleading.” As in, Blum is a bad hitter and focusing on 20 random at-bats in exhibition games may cause someone to think otherwise.
Blum has had plenty of very good 20-at-bat stretches in 11 seasons, but at the end of the day he has a .250 batting average with a .697 OPS for his career and hasn’t hit above .262 or posted an OPS above .705 since way back in 2002. Regardless of how long Berkman is out, for the sake of their sanity Astros fans better hope that quote from first-year manager Brad Mills is little more than lip service.
