The road to the Majors
The path to the Major Leagues is long and winding. Just ask Chris Coste. He spent the first eleven years of his professional baseball career with Minor League baseball clubs all across the country. After clawing his way up to the AAA level he earned an invitation to spring training last season. In Clearwater, Chris caught fire batting .463 with 3 home runs and 11 RBIs in 41 at bats. It appeared that Coste’s dreams would soon be realized. Then disaster, the Phillies traded for David Dellucci who took the Phillies final roster spot. Serendipitously two months later utility infielder Alex Gonzalez retired opening up the road to the Majors for Coste.
Coste will still have to work for his roster spot. In the off-season the Phillies signed catcher Rod Barajas to start in front of Carlos Ruiz. Then the Phillies claimed Gregg Dobbs from the Seattle Mariners, leaving Coste once again in a fight for a roster spot.
Coste understands what is at stake. He commented to Todd Zolecki, "It's more exciting being here this year, but at the same time there are more nerves because there is so much more to lose. Every year I'd come here at ground zero. I could only go up. Now I can really only go down.”
I’m a bit biased when it comes to Coste. If I were GM, Coste would form half of a catching platoon with Ruiz and Rod Barajas wouldn’t be a Phillie. Coste is a professional hitter and to borrow a phrase from MLB statistics guru Cory Schwartz, “hitters hit”. It’s no coincidence that the Phillies lineup got hot when Coste got called up last season. His bat at the end of the line up turned the Phils offense from potent to lethal. Pat Gillick’s goal should be to assemble the roster with the greatest amount of talent. If he wants to achieve that goal he needs to give Coste a shot.
Sources:
Coste counting on another super spring
By Todd Zolecki / Philadelphia Inquirer
Picture of Chris Coste from cord.edu
9 comments:
I could not agree more with your post. You hit it right on when you said, in part, "(i)t’s no coincidence that the Phillies lineup got hot when Coste got called up last season . . . Pat Gillick’s goal should be to assemble the roster with the greatest amount of talent. If he wants to achieve that goal he needs to give Coste a shot."
However, Gillick has never been a supporter of Chris Coste's, and Gillick's pointless acquisition of Dobbs (another of Gillick's Seattle guys), is but one illustration of this fact. Dobbs played in only 23 games for the Mariners last season, mostly as a pinch hitter, having only 27 at bats. In fact, over the seasons 2004-2006, Dobbs played in 100 games, with only 227 at bats, and only 33 games in the field. In fact, Dobbs played only 14 innings in the field for the Mariners in 2006.
Dobbs is no ugrade over Coste. And let's not forget that Coste was the AAA International League's All Star third baseman for Scranton Wilkes-Barre in 2005. Certainly, Coste deserved more, after his 2006 performance, than to be confronted by Gillick with a battle for a roster spot from a guy like Dobbs in 2007 ST.
And, it should be noted that although Dobbs is a left handed batter, as Manuel noted in yesterday's Zolecki piece in the Inguirer, Coste hit right handed pitchers better than he hit lefties last year.
That's a really good point about Coste hitting righties. One of the big arguments for putting Dobbs on the team is that it gives Charlie Manuel a left handed bat to use against right handed relievers. If Coste has progressed as a hitter to the point where he can hit righties and lefties than it makes less sense for Dobbs to get the roster spot.
It will be an absolute shame if he is not on the team come April 2nd. If he isn't, however, we will almost definitely see Coste called up at some point over the season.
Overall, I just feel bad for the guy
He's the kind of guy it's you want to want to see succeed.
Hi, I'm a Mets fan, but I like your writing and so I'll be back again.
Thanks, I appreciate the compliment and will try to keep pumping out posts.
Damn you. You got a nice Mets fan for your page. I have some dickhead who posts pictures of Howard giving it to Burrell on mine. Makes me sick
You haven't seen some of the comments that I have deleted. Some people are pretty sick.
I don't even know this guy, but I really enjoyed this post.
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