In what is evidence of baseball being a funny game or the National League being way worse than the American League--or maybe both--Pat Burrell homered last night and is now 19-for-58 (.328) with four homers and three doubles for the Giants. Burrell spent the first nine seasons of his career in the NL playing for the Phillies, posting an .852 OPS with an average of 30 homers and 95 RBIs per 150 games. He signed a two-year, $16 million contract with the Rays last offseason, proceeded to hit .218 with 16 homers and a .672 OPS in 146 games, and was released last month. Signed to a minor-league contract by San Francisco, he made a brief pit stop at Triple-A and quickly returned to the National League, where he’s currently sporting the highest OPS of his career while forcing his way into the Giants’ plans. In fact, if you simply pretend Burrell never set foot in the American League (something Rays fans would surely sign off on) here are his yearly OPS totals:
YEAR OPS 2005 .892 2006 .890 2007 .902 2008 .875 2010 .980
Burrell is earning the league minimum with the Giants, which is perhaps also evidence of life not being fair. Whatever the case, my advice for Hank Blalock is to sign with whichever NL team will have him.
