buffalo_pete

I don't remember who came up with it, but we really need to make Caleb "Meat Raffle" Theilbar a thing.

That's not even close to an amount of money I would be willing to pay. I might go to the futures game.

Joe Nathan was really good the couple times he sat in.

I think this is a good comparison. I was although thinking about this in relation to Justin Morneau the other day. When Morneau came up, he was embarrassing at first base, especially compared to the guy he replaced (which, fortunately for Trevor Plouffe, is not a problem Plouffe faces). Although Morneau certainly isn't Doug Mientkiewicz, because Doug Mientkiewicz was by a country mile the best defender at first base that I've seen in my lifetime, Morneau plays All Star caliber first base every day as a matter of course. One thing Morneau, Koskie, and Plouffe have in common is that they were not born with the body types to make them naturally gifted infielders. Morneau and Koskie got where they did as defenders because they worked hard, and Plouffe's a guy that looks like he works hard. Is Plouffe ever going to be a Gold Glove candidate at third? Probably not. But although fair criticisms can be made, he's far from embarrassing at the hot corner, and in my opinion, has made no more or fewer boneheaded plays in the last month than anyone else in the infield not named Justin Morneau. Frankly, I'm much more aggravated with Florimon, who does have the natural tools and defensive reputation and hasn't made a very good showing early on, either in terms of quick thinking or consistent effort. (You're not paying your own laundry bill, kid, lay out.) I think if Plouffe was hitting even marginally more consistently we wouldn't even be discussing this. Gardenhire jerking him around like this all the time isn't helping anybody either. Just sayin'.

Call me crazy, but in my uneducated opinion the place to find out if Hicks can hit big league pitching...is the big leagues.

I listen to most games on MLB Audio. Yeah, it's kinda stupid that I'm paying for something that's theoretically "free," but I am often not near an FM radio, the signal does suck (although it's not as bad as AM 1500 was), and I like to cruise around and listen to other games too, of which there is always at least one going on somewhere - and I do that a lot more than you'd maybe think, and it's made me a more knowledgeable baseball fan. That alone is worth it to me. I think $20 a year is a very reasonable price to pay for all that. Every game, every day, all year, perfect sound, anywhere I can get online, twenty bucks? Dude, that's a steal.