We have
Raul Gonzalez's services for just $350,000 this year because of 14 days. He came up fourteen days short of reaching enough service time to become eligible for free agency, and got mere pennies in arbitration because it's largely based on playing time, something
Gonzalez has never really had.
He'll get his fair shot this year, mostly based on a
Scott Podsednik-like performance after a similar emergence from the proverbial bottomless pit of baseball, the waiver wire.
Code:
AB BB K AVG OBP SLG OPSv.R OPSv.L
173 23 25 .283 .367 .434 .866 .694
Gonzalez is reputed to hit lefties better than righties. The reverse platoon split regressing back to the mean is what killed
Joe Borchard last year, as he was passable against southpaws in 2005 and just assable last year. But I can't help but think that
Gonzalez can buck that trend, and damn it, do I ever want him to. A 33 year old getting playing time only because he ended up on a second division team, and ending up with enough money to bring his family over from Santurce, Puerto Rico to the States. Enough to send his children to college, to make a career that might have just been a footnote of a few hundred at-bats into something substantial.
I want to win the World Series with this fake bunch before I'm eligible for Social Security; really, I do. I want
Mark Buehrle to be the latter-day
Steve Carlton and justify his $50 million contract, I want to get a ring for
Frank Thomas before the only memories of him are
plated in bronze. I want to see
P.J. Bevis have a 10-year career and be the most successful Rule 5 pick ever, and I even want to see
Esteban Loaiza have one more taste of the magic potion that he hasn't sipped in this universe for going on four years. But perhaps more than anything, I want to see a story like
Raul Gonzalez's have a happy ending, instead of fading off into obscurity like
my high school baseball coach,
Mike Caruso, or
Tuck Turner.
14 days. Less time than
Clinton King or
Nate Cornejo spent on our roster last year. Less time than
Felix Diaz. I'm not sure I could write 100 words on the three of them.
Two short weeks. Has
Gonzalez been blessed, having received the perfect opportunity, or has he been cursed, having his window pulled away by the misalignment of the stars?
Only time will tell. Unfortunately for
Gonzalez, that two weeks has suddenly turned into a number much greater, and only after about six months will he know which way the winds of the diamond will blow him. For his sake, my dreams, and your hopes, I hope it's down that golden, yellow-brick road to the land of opportunity, to the land of Oz.
But I fear it's much more likely that it's just down a dirt road back to Santurce.