Bravo Jordan. Bravo.

"1. David Ortiz, Boston

Ortiz was criminally misused by Tom Kelly early in his career, then suffered through a rash of injuries when he was just starting to get on track. Even so, in just 412 at-bats last season, he cracked 32 doubles and 20 HRs, both career highs. He's only batted below .272 once in his career,and he slugged an even .500 last season. His career OPS on the road is higher than at home (827 to 791). Many people think of him as a platoon player, but his OPS against lefties lifetime is 795, while against righties it's 813: he can hit anyone from either side of the mound. He'll take the first-base job in Boston in spring training and run with it, cracking 30-35 HRs and posting an OPS in the 875 range."

55!  Oh my lord, where has the time gone? 

The passing of Don Chevrier has got me thinking more and more about this - I was mildly surprised to learn that he was only 69 when he died, given that in the 80s when I was much younger myself, I couldn't have imagined that he was only middle aged at the time.  That there were only fourteen years between him and Andujar even now almost beggars belief.  Additional evdience, I suppose, of how distortedly we receive information, and how the passage of time warps it even further.

"Let's do the time warp" does seem like appropriate theme music for Joaquin, anyways. 

In 1985, when Joaquin had his World Series meltdown, he was 33.  I guess that I had figured he was younger then, but youneverknow.

Among the Joaq's Most Similar pitchers are John Denny, Ed Whitson, Dock Ellis and Pat Dobson ... not the most even-tempered group of guys ever mentioned in the same paragraph!

At 33, he was coming off back-to-back 20-win seasons, then won only 17 the remaining three years of his career combined!

There was a 2005 Andujar too. It was never finalized because my incredible pick of Bobby Jenks just blew everyone's mind. The comment I made selecting Jenks was even deleted from the page (!) but evidence remained in this comment by Mick: "Greg, claiming a player off waivers seems to me to be a weird sort of free agent signing, so yeah, let's go with that. If Jenks wins the Andujar, I will eat a Shea Hillenbrand jersey."

Jenks should've won the Andujar and that jersey should've been eaten. Nuff said.

If Jenks wins the Andujar, I will eat a Shea Hillenbrand jersey.

Someone eating a Hillenbrand jersey is much more appropriate than someone paying Shea to play baseball in it.