I've been dying for an excuse to link to this blog, and now I have it. Joe Posnanski recently started a blog to support his new book. For those who don't know, Poz is a writer for the Kansas City Star and, quite simply, one of the best sportswriters in the country. His new book, titled The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip through Buck O'Neil's America, records the baseball legend's endless travels and stories involving the sport. Poz's blog has become a daily read for me.
Today, he finally gave me my chance with this post on new Met Ambiorix Burgos:
That's the feeling Burgos inspires. You would have killed to have his arm. Instead you have to watch him shake off fastballs because he's in love with his splitter, you have to watch him throw fastballs high and outside and get into 3-1 counts, then you have to watch him groove thigh-high fastballs over the heart of the plate that hitters tattoo into the bleachers (the guy gave up 16 bombs in 73 innings last year ... and every single one of them, it seemed, cost the Royals a game). He wasn't a bad pitcher. He was an insult to pitching.
Read the whole post; it's definitely worth reading. Burgos is certainly promising, but it's important to remember that there are plenty of promising pitchers who disappoint and are given opportunity after opportunity to frustrate fans over and over again.
But hey, maybe Rick Peterson is the one who can fix him.