Good morning Fackers. Today is a day for celebration, and not just because the Yanks notched a needed win last night. Our long national nightmare is over. Sixty days after he was added to the roster, and nearly seven weeks after he'd outlived whatever usefulness he offered, Angel Berroa was finally designated for assignment last night when Cody Ransom was activated.
Berroa made it into 21 games in his Yankee career, amassing 24 plate appearances and hitting .136/.174/.182, good for an OPS+ of -6. That's negative six. He is now .228/.270/.318, 52 OPS+ over his last 796 Major League PAs.
In the field he was ostensibly A-Rod's back-up at third, even though A-Rod has started all but five games there since his return. Berroa logged 63 innings at third, or 62 and 2/3 more than his career total entering the season. In his time there, he made 3 errors, good for a fielding percentage of 0.880 and a UZR/150 of -34.5. Once again, that's negative thirty-four point five.
From May 5th until spelling A-Rod this past weekend, he played in just 11 games, had only 5 PAs, and played just 18 innings in the field. Yet the team considered him more valuable than any of the other options at their disposal.
How and why he lasted that long is beyond me. It confounds me to even ponder why. Boggles the mind. Stupifies. Befuddles. Flabbergasts. The best I can come up with is the following list of National Independence Days:
June 12 - Philipines
June 17 - Iceland
June 26 - Madagascar
June 29 - Seychelles
June 30 - Democratic Republic of the Congo
July 1 - Canada, Burundi, Rwanda
July 3 - Belarus
July 4 - USA
July 5 - Algeria, Cape Verde Islands, Venezuela
July 6 - Malawi
There it is. Within two weeks in either direction of Berroa's release fourteen different nations celebrate their independence. Caught up in the spirit, the Yankees wanted to give us fans a holiday of our own in that time. So thank you Yankees. Thank you for thinking of us, and potentially sacrificing victory over the past several weeks so that we can now observe Angel Berroa DFA Day every June 24th, celebrating our independence from Berroa's tyranny of epic suckitude and worthlessness.
Four weeks ago I went on a diatribe about what I felt was the dead weight on the Yankee roster. Of the five players I highlighted in that post, Wang is moving back towards respectability and three are now off the roster. You're next Tomko.
The Yankees have ten days to waive, trade, or release Berroa. If they were able to move Jose Veras for cash considerations, what can they get for Berroa? Loose change?
Thursday, June 25, 2009
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amen. time to rejoice
ReplyDeleteRemind me never to get on your shit list, Matt.
ReplyDeletepjb
It's not so much that Berroa's on my shit list. The guy could a saint for all I know. Much like my thoughts on Kevin Cash last month, I don't have anything against Berroa. But he is not remotely close to even being a bad ballplayer. He's beyond that. The fact that he's even been given 800 PAs while posting those triple slash numbers is absurd.
ReplyDeleteMy anger is more directed at Cashman and the front office and whatever hand Girardi has in player personell decisions. Berroa was absolutely worthless in his time here. His job was supposed to be to rest A-Rod, and that never happened until it blew up into a full-fledged fiasco.
Yet he held a Major League job for two months when his spot could have gone to someone who could help the team more. In that time, the Yankees cut loose two young pitchers who had yet to have the opportunity to prove whether they would suck as bad as Berroa. That's poor roster management, no two ways about it.