Tuesday, June 29, 2004

O'Neill on Simon again

Brian O'Neill has some fun playing at GM of the Pirates. His comparison of Stynes/Nunez to Benjamin/Nunez is a good one.

If Simon can get hot - he has four walks and two extra-base hits in his last eight at-bats, so maybe he's coming around - let him start and contribute. He can platoon with J.J. Davis. If/when Davis shows us he's ready for more, then let Simon go and replace him with someone who can pinch hit. It would be nice to have the big guy on the bench as a left-handed righty-killing pinch-hitter, but his track record as a pinch-hitter has never been good enough to believe he can do it better than Abe Nunez or Bobby Hill. A player like Simon can't sit. I'm not sure how it happens, but it seems like he gains two pounds every time he watches a game from the bench, and he's no good unless he's all lathered up. Maybe they could get him on the exercise bike for the first six innings and see if that doesn't improve his pinch-hitting?

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