
A-hem. Two words: Russell Davis. Playing in the cavern at Albany (AA) last
year (375/410/385 down the alleys and to center), Davis went .285/.355/.483
with 22 homers. There aren't any small parks on the road in the Eastern
League, either. He's 23(!) and his MLE was .258/.308/.416, 17 HR. I have no
fielding statistics, but from seeing him a number of times last year I'd say
that he's not Brooks Robinson, but neither is he Howard Johnson. Unless they
think they can win the pennant *this year* (which seems possible) and need
Boggs to do it, I think they're making the same sort of mistake with Davis
that Boston made with Boggs, leaving him in the minors for two or three
years after he'd shown that he was a good hitter.


Hrm? They still have him on the roster (16 AB through the first two weeks).
They've just never figured out what to do with him. I suspect that he hits
enough (especially vs. lefties) to be a reasonable shortstop. One rumor
running around during spring training was that they wanted to convert
Silvestri to be a catcher(!) because "his body type was wrong for a
shortstop".  You'd think that somebody in the same *division*, who plays
Baltimore about a dozen times a year, would know better.

 Mike Jones | AIX High-End Development | mjones@donald.aix.kingston.ibm.com