Travis Hafner is due to make $11.5 million for the Indians in 2010.
I may be off base here (no pun intended), but $11.5 mil for a guy hitting .270 with 11 home runs is just a tad much.
Manager Eric Wedge said this week that Hafner is compensating after surgery on his shoulder, and he won’t be 100 percent until next season.
The wait for Hafner to rebound to form is getting like the wait for a glacier to recede.
“His swing is different,” Wedge told the gathered media.
This is all well and good, but the guy is not coming through – and has not for some time.
I flash back to Game 5 of the ALCS in 2007 when Hafner’s bat was a black hole in the lineup. In the first inning of that game, the Indians had a chance to put a dent in Josh Beckett. Hafner ended that chance, though, by grounding into an inning-ending double-play. Beckett was unhittable from that point. Sometimes with a great pitcher, you have to get them early. Hafner had the chance. In my mind, that was the most important at-bat of that series.
Now we have Hafner compensating for a shoulder that was repaired months ago. We have a power hitter choking up. We have a guy hitting .206 with runners in scoring position. And we have him being due $11.5 million in 2010.
Hafner's a good guy and all that … but … how long do the Indians wait?
Hafner is due $13 million in 2011 and 2012.
You can do that math.
Ol' Travis in happier days: http://xr.com/yz9
if trav's truly a good guy he'll do the honorable thing. let the team off the hook and retire.
oh yeah, all the people who said i was wrong about hafner and that he would hit 30 hr and get 100 rbi's can pay homage to me on this post.
that means you lambbone and a few others.
terje, the sole reason I'd ever pay homage to you is because you know Lemmy, Gillan, Dio, Dickinson and Halford is not the name of a law firm.
I just looked it up, he's hitting .169 against left-handed curveballs and .213 against left-handed change ups. Wow. That's impressive. With skills like that, you almost have to platoon him.
I love how people crucify the Dolans for being cheap, when the REAL enemy of this franchise is the team's DH. He snookered Shapiro for an O-U-T-R-A-G-E-O-U-S contract when he was injured. We should be SUING the guy, to be frank.
Shapiro's legacy will be this: Overspending for unworthy players. He, alone, has nearly bankrupt the franchise with moves like Hafner.
Hafner was a bonehead prior to the contract. I never could fathom how he put up the numbers he did. He seems like a total lunkhead. And now it's showing up big time. Anyone who thinks this guy's bat is gonna return is totally fooling themselves.
If there's a team out there who'll take Hafner and his salary off our hands, it would be the biggest unload since Shawn Kemp. We dumped that baby-maker on some idiot team, so I guess anything is possible.
I already told you how Hafner put up the numbers he did. There's nothing to fathom. http://xr.com/57ac Nobody will ever take him. They're stuck. He's like an uglier, more pale David Ortiz.
they can't test for HGH yet – someone buy that man a vial!!! or a vat.
At this point, I wish Hafner would go back on the steroids, just so we can recoup a LITTLE value before he's banned from baseball.
the same old idiots responding……Terje and his even dumber brother, Alan, would pee down there legs if in the vicinity of a major league fastball. People get hurt…..even Prince of the City, Bernie got hurt. There is a whole lot more wrong with this baseball team than what they are paying an injured DH. At least, Moe ( Pat M.) gets paid to write this crap, but Larry (Terje) and Curly (Alan) have way too much time on their hands and their wives, if they have kept them, should make them go to work.
Curly? I prefer to think of myself as Moe, Joyce. Sometimes Shemp. But never Curly. The next time I have an insatiable urge to throw a cream pie, make sure your face is at a 90-degree angle.
Joyce, keep your chins held high!
Hey, Joyce, I came across a 2006 paparazzi photo of Hafner, back when Travis and his new bride used to role-play and get really, really kinky. http://xr.com/tkhc
so barry bonds was damned by his increasing head size but pronk gets a good natured ribbing for having a charlie brown dome. what a crock. joyce, i'm not sure what they're putting in the cafeteria food in your old folks home down in naples but you need to come to terms and face the truth that the great white dope is a great white doper.
also, remember the mysterious nature of trav's shoulder injury. they couldn't quite pin it down until they found it was the connective tissue weakening his swing. a common result of steroid abuse.
2-4 with 2 RBI. Good work Pat, that got him turned around. Now write something about Shoppach or the Flats.
http://xr.com/qun