Dear Christian,
Paying for your services this year as the shortstop for the Washington Nationals ranks up there with one of the worst investments ever. I would rank it up there with the Orioles taking on Albert Belle, but you weren’t really that good to start with. Now, I will admin you had a few good years up there in Minnesota, but you were never really in the same echelon as Tejada, Jeter, and Garciaparra.
I’m wholly disappointed in your performance this year…I mean, just look at your performance in April, kicking off the Nationals’ inaugural season with a whopping .209 average. Surprisingly that was substantially better than your sub-Mendoza line numbers from May.
Now the only true respectable month you had was September, so I’ll commend you on turning it on during the stretch run, but what about the other 130 or so games leading up to that?
It’s time for you to stop sucking so bad and step it up. You earned $4.2 million for those robust 2005 statistics…which breaks down to about $26,000 per game, or $42,000 per hit. I’d like to see that payment ratio down to about $26,000 per hit, which would have placed your average at .354. Ok, maybe that’s setting the bar too high…I don’t expect you to mirror Tejada’s ability, but let’s at least get it in the high .280s or .290s.
Ryan Zimmerman is waiting in the wings to take over at either short or third. Castilla is getting up there in years, so he may be done in a year or so. You’re 27, step it up, or move aside for Zimmerman.
| SPLIT | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | HBP | SO | SB | CS | AVG | OBP | SLG | OPS |
| April | 86 | 3 | 18 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 14 | 1 | 1 | .209 | .233 | .279 | .512 |
| May | 89 | 7 | 14 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 6 | 0 | 18 | 0 | 1 | .157 | .211 | .180 | .390 |
| June | 79 | 10 | 19 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 7 | 4 | 0 | 10 | 2 | 2 | .241 | .277 | .430 | .707 |
| July | 42 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 9 | 0 | 0 | .095 | .191 | .143 | .334 |
| August | 77 | 8 | 18 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 2 | 0 | 13 | 1 | 0 | .234 | .253 | .312 | .565 |
| September | 77 | 10 | 25 | 7 | 1 | 1 | 12 | 5 | 1 | 9 | 3 | 0 | .325 | .369 | .481 | .850 |
| October | 6 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | .333 | .333 | .333 | .667 |
| Total | 456 | 39 | 100 | 19 | 6 | 4 | 31 | 5 | 1 | 76 | 7 | 4 | .219 | .260 | .314 | .574 |
Thanks,
Tom