Sir Charles: It's NOT just the OBP issues. I wish that were only it. Somewhere, in one of the other Tavares threads, I, and others, documented his SLG issues. To say he swings a wet noodle at the plate is to insult wet noodles. He's absolutely useless with the bat in his hands. Useless.
The ONLY way he doesn't affirimitvely hurt this team is if he miraculously OBPs .375 this year. A batting average driven .375. Which means he will need to hit about .335. And, with his lack of power, that is just about impossible.
Go look again at his career SLG. I will wait. Look at it for individual seasons. And consider how horrible it is going to be when he gets 600 at-bats for this team. If he is not getting on base, he is useless. Completely and totally useless. And his getting on base is largely dependant on being hit lucky. Uber-hit lucky. And I gotta say, the odds of him being such in a small park like GABP compared to the wide expanses of Coors which will allow more than the usual number of bloop hits, well, they're not good.
This is an awful signing, for all the reasons that were laid out on this board in about five threads this off-season, as we all cringed at what was coming. It makes the climb to, um, .500 that much harder, and it darn near puts a bullet in the brain of hopes for a WC chase for this team.
Par for the course, I suppose. What we have come to expect from this waste of a franchise, anymore, I guess.
ETA: His stats at baseballrefernce.com
http://www.baseball-reference.com/t/taverwi01.shtml
His career HIGH for SLG is .382. That's it. That's his high. His norm? For slugging? For SLUGGING? .337. That's horrible. On so many levels that the mind reels...