Saturday, January 24, 2009

Good Riddance

You wanted to like Jeff Kent, after all he went to Cal. And he was one of the most "impactful" Giants players in recent history. But he found his true self as a Texan, a red-necked, dumbass shitkicker.
The following is a cut-and-paste straight off the Giant's website:
"Kent topped 100 RBIs eight times and hit 20 or more homers in 12 seasons -- and went 6-for-6 in both categories as a Giant. Besides winning MVP, he finished among the top 10 in MVP voting in three other years with San Francisco, represented the club in three of his five All-Star Game appearances and collected three of his four Silver Sluggers as a Giant. His career-high 128 RBIs in 1998 broke Rogers Hornsby's 71-year-old franchise record for second basemen.

"Kent contributed heavily to one of the most successful stretches in team history. The Giants averaged 91 victories per season during his tenure with them. They reached the postseason three times, not counting a loss at Chicago in the 1998 Wild Card playoff. The Giants' only comparable period since they moved to San Francisco in 1958 was 1962-67, when they averaged 93 wins per year but captured just one pennant."

2 comments:

M.C. O'Connor said...

The Kent trade (i.e., the Matt Williams Trade) was brilliant, one of the highlights of The Sabean Era. We shoulda won the whole damn thing in aught-two as we all know. I would give a lot more of a shit about the careers and post-careers of guys like Kent, Snow, Aurilia, Schmidt, etc. etc. if we had come away with that fookin' ring. Alas.

Kent was a great player, but the 2000 MVP shoulda been Barry's. The G-POPE made everyone around him better--that, to me, is the definition of "valuable."

Anonymous said...

Stat-of-the-day, courtesy of ESPN's Buster Olney: "Even if you include pitchers, Andruw Jones is one of the worst hitters in the majors against right-handed pitching. He had an OPS of .436 in 2008 against righties, with one homer in 136 at-bats. That was a lower OPS than that of hitting immortals Tim Lincecum, Aaron Cook and Matt Cain."