Let’s see if I can come up with a post every day of the rest of the offseason. Today, there are 43 days left until Opening Day on April 1.
I wanted to start this countdown at 50, but time did a strange thing and went by too quickly. That has never happened in the offseason before! So we’ll start at 43.
43
is the number of hits Johnny Giavotella had in the Majors last year. His 2011 and 2012 MLB counting stats are weirdly identical.
| Year | Age | Tm | G | PA | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | CS | BB | SO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 23 | KCR | 46 | 187 | 178 | 20 | 44 | 9 | 4 | 2 | 21 | 5 | 2 | 6 | 32 |
| 2012 | 24 | KCR | 53 | 189 | 181 | 21 | 43 | 7 | 1 | 1 | 15 | 3 | 0 | 8 | 35 |
| 2 Yrs | 99 | 376 | 359 | 41 | 87 | 16 | 5 | 3 | 36 | 8 | 2 | 14 | 67 | ||
| 162 Game Avg. | 162 | 615 | 587 | 67 | 142 | 26 | 8 | 5 | 59 | 13 | 3 | 23 | 110 | ||
In both seasons, Gio could not impress Nedly enough to keep the starting job. And count me among those who think that, almost no matter what happens in Surprise, Chris Getz will be awarded 2nd base, and Gio will be stuck in a Storm Chasers lineup, again. Although I’m not the world’s biggest Chris Gritz fan, the numbers kind of bear this out, sort of. In 2011, Gio’s SLG was higher than Getz’s has ever been, but that’s really it. Otherwise, Getz has outpaced Gio at every rate stat at every age. And Giavotella struck out at a higher rate in both of his partial MLB seasons than Getz ever has, which would be fine if he also walked more, but he hasn’t.
Meet the new uniform, same as the old uniform.
But the reason I said “sort of” up there is that Gio is younger, and also all of his MLB numbers are tiny sample sizes. So who knows what he could actually do with a full season – he’ll have to somehow get a full season in someday, and sadly for him I don’t think this is the year it will happen.
Of course, now Elliot Johnson is a new wrinkle, and is on the 40-man roster too. woooo competition, I guess. [Side note: Did you know that Johnson’s wife Nicole is a blogger? She contributes to the insightful The Life of a Baseball Wife blog, which is definitely worth the read for those who want a peek behind the curtain.]
43 is also the number of 10s of dollars it would cost to sponsor the 2012 Royals page on B-Ref, if anyone’s interested.
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