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"If you had told me this was even possible, I would have laughed in your face," said Colbert, who was decidedly not amused. "I don't even know what to say."
Sure, he's probably not nearly so bad as the embarrassing (and possibly outrageous) use of Madison's Rafael Perez, who has absolutely no legitimate business on a BBA diamond, but by the numbers he's a worse fielder than Brooklyn's Francisco Garcia and he's among the bottom fifteen qualified hitters in the BBA by OPS. (Perez and Garcia are last and 3rd to last, respectively). Colbert was never going to be a great defensive six, but his bat was supposed to make up for a lot of that.
"What's amazing to me is just how utterly, terribly unlucky Don has been this year at the plate," said Jacksonville hitting coach Sixto Gutierrez. "The man's putting the bat on the ball and drawing walks, and he cannot catch a break."
How bad is Colbert's luck? He has had 456 plate appearances, with 53 walks and 42 strikeouts and 6 sacrifices and once hit by a pitch. Out of the remaining 354 plate appearances, Colbert has a .209 BABIP. To put this into perspective, the BBA pitching leader in BABIP is Calgary's outrageously lucky Nalany Ahotaein, who has a .212 BABIP allowed, meaning Colbert is so unlucky he's making the whole Johnson League into the luckiest pitcher in the BBA.
"Yes, we've had some concerns about Don's ability to hit the ball with force in the past, but nothing like this, ever," said bench coach Alonso Batista. "This is another level."
Colbert was appropriately signed for two seasons after his Golden Bat win in 2061 at $3.5 million each, but if this is the player that Jacksonville can expect for those two seasons, they might have to come up with another solution at shortstop.
"People have joked with me that I must be a really good player to still have a job after playing this badly," said Colbert. "I feel like one of those pitchers who led the league in losses and went on to make the Hall of Fame."