Bobby Beat 2007 v3: Bobs fall short of two 50 HR Players

[jiminyhopkins]

Washington, DC--

If there is one thing that the Washington franchise does well, it has to be hitting home runs. Since the current regime took over the club in 1999, there has never been a shortage of offense on the team. In fact, in recent years, the lineup has been one of the best in the league. In 2007, however, the Bobs had a chance to make history with not one, but two players reaching the vaunted 50 home run plateau.

With a guy like Jim Wilson, this sort of thing is pretty much expected. Wilson has been thought of as an elite hitter almost from the moment he was drafted. The difference this year has been his contact hitting, to the tune of a .331 batting average. Getting more hits means that more of them can be home runs, and Wilson ended up with 49 bombs, just short of the magic number, and short of his career high of 55. Wilson also drove in 126 and recorded an OPS over 1. Oh and for all of you new school Mike Trout lovers out there, Jim accumulated plenty of VORPs and WARs, supposedly.

But the real story in Washington this year was the amazing performance of Allen Stephens, playing his first full season as the everyday right fielder. After all, how many teams can have Mike "OBP 'Ivan de' Jesus" Clarke retire on them and not skip a beat? The Bobs can, especially when the replacement hits 52 home runs and records 136 RBI, all while hitting .333. Stephens thus joins the illustrious 50 homer club, becoming the 3rd Bobwhite to do so. And he got lots of VORPs too, and even some WARs.

So the Bobwhites miss out on becoming the first team in modern MBWBA history to have two 50 homer players on the same team. Now if they could somehow find two <i>15 game winners</i> on the same team, maybe they can finish at .500 one of these years.

[jiminyhopkins]

And with that, I get to keep my sub-.500 team next year by scraping by with 15-point-something PPTs. Thanks felipe for posting links in my other two articles!