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I give him a resounding vote of CRAP.

A solidly terrible defensive catcher, who brings nothing of substance offensively. Oh, and he is a jackass.

CRAP.

-Jeremy

I can't believe that such a dickhead played for my beloved Montreal Expos.

Despite his hotheaded nature...and his lazy, Cubs appropriate defense, he is still a good hitter, especially considering he's a catcher.

Still, he jacked A.J. Pierzynski in the face. Fuck Barrett.

CRAP.

He played high school ball here in Atlanta, as did my brother.

My brother struck his ass out twice in one game and hit a triple off of him when he was pitching.

Barrett is an asshole.

Ok, now do people realize that Barrett's a bigger asshole than AJ?? Why does Pierzynski have the rep, but not Barrett? Fuck that shit. I'm glad Zambrano beat the hell out of him. Maybe Barrett would've had a fighting chance if he sucker-punched Z the way he did AJ.

I still love those radio spots where Barrett talks about what a gamer Zambrano is & how they get along so well.

He's turned into Todd Hundley without the home runs. CRAP.

He's a very useful player who has had six (or so) really, really shitty weeks. But taken on the whole, I'd say he's at least the best player the Cubs have had at catcher since Jody Davis, and possibly since Randy Hundley. Save that one crazy year from Rick Wilkins, of course.

Maybe he's an asshole (although I seriously doubt anyone on here can speak authoritatvely about it), but who the fuck cares? It's not like I'm sitting down with him over a nice meal. To the extent that sort of thing affects the performance of the pitchers with whom he works, it's sure not showing up in the ERAs of Rich Hill or Jason Marquis or Ted Lilly or Sean Marshall. All but Zambrano (and Wade Miller, but he's a trainwreck) have performed above expectations, and Blanco has caught Zambrano about half the time.

It's somewhat beside the point, but if some savvy veteran catcher had been catching this staff since April, every old-school baseball writer under the sun would be chalking up those performances to the great leadership and intangibles of that catcher. They'd tell us how well he can call a game and all the rest of that bullshit. Now I'm not saying there's nothing to this sort of theory, but it does highlight the nonsense that passes for cause and effect in a lot of mainstream baseball journalism.

Anyway, back to Barrett. Neifi Perez is crap. Cesar Izturis is crap. Jose Macias is crap. Jacque Jones's arm -- or more accurately, his turf-bred angles for throws in from the outfield -- is a steaming pile of shit. But Michael Barrett? Even if he's not the hitter he was last year, I'd call him an asset relative to the norm. It's not like the league is loaded with catchers who can hit. And he will hit in 2007, just like he did in 2006, 2005, and 2004. Certainly his defense is sub-par, but he generally makes up for it with his bat and then some. To think he can't or won't because he's not hitting that well in June of 2007 is pretty shortsighted.

cwiko wrote:Ok, now do people realize that Barrett's a bigger asshole than AJ?? Why does Pierzynski have the rep, but not Barrett? Fuck that shit. I'm glad Zambrano beat the hell out of him. Maybe Barrett would've had a fighting chance if he sucker-punched Z the way he did AJ.

I still love those radio spots where Barrett talks about what a gamer Zambrano is & how they get along so well.

Pierzynski's rep has nothing to do with the Barrett incident and everything to do with the fact that many, many people around baseball consider him to be an asshole and have gone on record saying exactly that. Not just his opponents; former teammates from the Twins, Giants, and White Sox, too.

I really can't think of another current player who is spoken about with such uniform disdain by those within the game. Maybe Bonds, but there are a lot of defenders of Bonds out there too.