| During the 2002 season, my friend Steven,
announced, "Wes
Helms is the bane of my existence." This rather harsh statement
was made after Helms had another poor game for Steven's Braves.
Happily, for Steven, Helms was traded away to the
Brewers in the off-season. The
point: Luis Rivas is quickly becoming the bane of every Twins fans'
existence.
It's not that I dislike Rivas personally, in fact, two years ago
my brother Greg and I almost started a Luis Rivas Fan Club. However,
since his decent rookie season everything has gone downhill. To be
fair, Rivas suffered a broken arm last season that may have
influenced his poor performance, but his struggles have carried over
into 2003. His batting average, slugging percentage and on base
percentage have all dropped since 2001, while he is stealing bases
less frequently and at a worse success rate. Worst of all, he plays
the poorest defense of any second baseman in the American League.
His defense has become so bad that the Twins staff has begun calling
him out publicly in the newspapers in the hopes of motivating him.
Ok, so that was a harsh paragraph. I really do not have much else
to add because his contributions have become too infrequent to
notice. It is not Rivas' fault that the Twins front office has not
assembled any depth in the middle infield, but I really hope that
someone upstairs is noticing the poor play. I would love to see any
of our surplus outfielder/ 1st basemen moved in order to acquire a
legitimate player at second base. The name that I think makes the
most sense is
Jose
Vidro, but I'm sure that Omar Minaya will ask for a lot in
return. Hopefully, this situation will work out in the end, but I
have really grown quite tired of Rivas' poor play. For more ideas
for possible replacements for Rivas, I highly recommend that you
check out
this entry by Aaron Gleeman.
Finally, Rivas has acquired the nickname Luis Oh-for-ThRivas over
at Aaron's Baseball Blog.
However, to me he will always be known as The Lettuce. While it is
not catchy, it will remind me of when was food poisoned in the
offseason prior to the 2002 season. He ate contaminated lettuce
while home in Venezuela and lost fifteen to twenty pounds. Then, at
the beginning of the season, Steven had him on his fantasy baseball
team and he promptly broke his wrist in the second game of the
season. Steven kept muttering, "The Lettuce is screwing me." Good
times.
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