Adam Greenberg to get second plate appearance

You guys need to take a look at Greenburg's minor league stats. The guy is terrible hitter - he is lucky he even got his 1 plate appearance in 2005.

 

Larry Yount doesn't see what the problem is.

 

He's only 62. Let's haul him out there. He'll need to make sure he does lots of begging/interviewing first, though.

 

Seriously, though, I think this is a fantastic move and a wonderful moment for baseball. It's no less "deserving" than a washed-up Kerry Wood getting to face one last hitter earlier this season at Wrigley, by the way. And man, that one almost brought me to tears.

For god's sake, Babe Ruth pitched a complete game for the Yankees at 38 years old. He wasn't "deserving" of getting a start on the mound, by any means. But it made the fans and the Babe happy, it didn't hurt anything, and it was entertaining.

The Marlins have 30 players on their expanded active roster today, per MLB rules. That means they have 10 empty spots they're not using. Not a single player is losing his spot because Greenberg is going to get an at-bat on Tuesday.

http://miami.marlins.mlb.com/team/roster_active.jsp?c_id=mia

The only issue I have with this stunt (yes, it's a stunt, but who cares):

Adam Greenberg had a claim to fame with that one-pitch HBP in 2005. He won't have one after this. He'll never be on a list of one-game players, like Moonlight Graham and Eddie Gaedel: http://sabr.org/category/demographic/one-gamers.

Unless he hits a home run in that one at-bat on Tuesday, and Hollywood makes a movie about him like "Rudy", nobody's ever going to bring his name up afterward. He'll just be the charity case who got a meaningless at-bat seven years later, like Minnie Minoso without the talent or discrimination.

 

It's football season.

 

This is the same franchise that once sold as souvenirs the 40,000 unused tickets from Roy Halladay's perfect game -- against the Marlins -- and also revised the actual attendance figure to count the souvenir tickets.

http://miami.marlins.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20100601&content_id=10674258

 

Everyone who is OK with this, what about a cancer patient? Maybe one a day once you're mathematically eliminated? What about a ow market team auctioning off 5 at bats and putting the money into payroll?

 

If fans are cool with all that, fine by me. My guess is they'd find out quickly that fans would hate that stuff constantly happening.

Fortunately, most fans see the game as an entertainment diversion and can enjoy something like this. There's a large large difference between what happened and what you're suggesting will happen.

 

If the Orioles had wanted to give a terminally ill (or at least career-ending ill) Eric Davis a courtesy at-bat to end his career on his own terms, I'd have had zero problem with it.

Give some Make-A-Wish kid an at-bat? Of course not. But Adam Greenberg made the major leagues. Legitimately.

Yeah, I know he's not a major league-caliber player anymore, if he ever was.

But it's not like he's Kevin Costner or Charlie Sheen or Garth Brooks getting an at-bat in a regular-season game, either. For the record, I didn't have a problem with any of those in spring training, either.

 

While there are 30 players presently on the Marlins active roster, all 40 spots of the Marlins 40-man roster are filled. So someone needs to be dropped from the 40-man roster by game time Tuesday so Greenberg can be added to the list. Someone on the 40-man roster is going to lose his spot to allow Greenberg to have that one at-bat.

http://mlb.mlb.com/team/roster_40man.jsp?c_id=mia

 

Are you sure about that? Is there nobody they could transfer to the 60-day DL?

Assuming that is the case, that player is going to be released soon enough. Younger players will need to be added, they may trade for guys, etc.

Be awesome if Heath Bell was the player released, though.

 

The Marlins aren't going to release Heath Bell for Greenberg. There are too many years and dollars left to eat to make that happen. However, Carlos Zambrano could be the guy released if they've already decided not to attempt to bring him back for next season.

The Marlins already have 4 players on the 60-day DL. Only Nick Green is on the 15-day DL. I guess they could try and move him to the 60-man DL list too.

So I guess I'll couch my position to:

"Unless Nick Green is transferred to the 60-day DL, someone is going to lose their spot on the 40-man roster to allow Greenberg to take that one at-bat."