An Ode to Campana: Traded to D'Backs for Two Pitchers

[nwfisch]

Maybe it's that simple. It probably is that.

I suppose my proximity to Chicago fans makes me feel like we are the dumbest in the nation, but maybe we are all on equal footing.


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Yeah I mean I love good players. Like Armando Allen and Viktor Stalberg

It's just fans get tied to favorite players they like, instead of the name on the front of the jersey.

 

[dabears253313]

I'm confused as to where I claimed to have one.


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You said he sucks, so that must mean you were a pro baseball player at some point in your life to be saying a pro athlete "sucks."

 

[MRubio52]

Yeah I mean I love good players. Like Armando Allen and Viktor Stalberg

It's just fans get tied to favorite players they like, instead of the name on the front of the jersey.

This is true.

I am more of a player fan than a team fan, but I like the really good players over the Campy guys.


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[MRubio52]

You said he sucks, so that must mean you were a pro baseball player at some point in your life to be saying a pro athlete "sucks."

Nah we aren't going to go through a long philosophical debate about the merit of critique and the needed credentials one needs to evaluate a player.


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[dabears253313]

Nah we aren't going to go through a long philosophical debate about the merit of critique and the needed credentials one needs to evaluate a player.


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Why not?

 

[MRubio52]

Why not?

Because we live in a democratic society where everyone's voice is treated as equal in matters of more import. None but a select few are politicians yet the general public are the ones that decide who holds the office, in essence determining and critiquing how a politician does their job without ever having "played the game at the highest level."

Archaic notions like "you need to play to critique," are so beyond useless and dated that I'm rather surprised to see it ever used. That notion goes against everything we have ever built as an American society it's almost sad how empty the "you never played" phrase is.

It's not a fair fight, and I so hate unfair fights.


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[Rice Cube]

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=19644

9. Cubs trade Tony Campana to Arizona For Two Living Homo Sapiens
This is how you know Theo Epstein is a heartless, calculating bastard. Sure, Campana can’t “hit” or “get on base” or “play baseball” in a major-league sense, but he was so f’n cute. Seriously, it’s as if Ollie from “Hoosiers” left the farm and signed with the Cubs, and showed up at the ballpark in the back of a pickup truck. Campana has the strangest build of any ballplayer I’ve seen, even more so, and in a very different way, than Sidney Ponson, whom I had the misfortune of seeing in a towel. Campana is all arms and legs. He’d have the build of a hurdler if only the hurdles weren’t so danged high. He acted the way he looked, carrying that aw-shucks demeanor over to his oh-so-precious encounters with the media.

Yet he was really fun to watch, there is no denying that. His Cubs uniform was too floppy and his hat a size too big, and when he got going, he was as fast as any player in the game. His inside-the-park homer on a grounder up the left-field line in 2011 was electric. Once then-Reds outfielder Yonder Alonso overran the ball in the corner, Campana exploded on the basepaths. He could have scored and made it back to second base. He also seemed to be able to steal bases at will, even though every pitcher and catcher in the league knew that his entire value was wrapped up in that skill.

Somewhere along the line, you’d have thought that someone would have told Campana that under no circumstance was he to swing at a ball outside of the strike zone. Not that there was any reason for opposing pitchers to avoid the zone—I’m not sure Campana can actually hit the ball over a major-league fence. Still, he has an inconceivably aggressive approach at the plate. Yet for all his shortcomings, there is value in a player like him, if you have the roster spot. The Cubs aren’t at a place to get that value, but if you’ve got a solid, balanced four-man outfield core, then Campana makes an ideal complement with his game-changing speed and range in the field.

As the ultimate underdog, Campana connected with the Cubs’ fan base in a big way. During introductions at the team’s annual fan convention last month, Campana might have received a bigger ovation than Ernie Banks. It was really close. Yet, Epstein and his cronies apparently believe that actual organization building outweighs the fact that Campana is the kind of player grannies like to bake for. Cynical pricks. —Bradford Doolittle