“I made an impact in the same way a meteor does,” Frazier laughs now. “Left behind a helluva crater.”
His joviality isn’t surprising to those around him. Bob Frazier is a kid who’s always been mature for his age, a guy the rest of the club looks up to. “You can tell he’s got the right stuff the minute he walks into a clubhouse,” said Pat Allen, another of the young guys the Nine have on the roster who insiders say is a pillar. Frazier, of course, carries around the informal nickname “Horrible” of reasons that are probably best lost to history. But fans were beginning to chant it over the sound of his walk-up music, and some were beginning to wonder if the kid was ever going to be able to play.
Run time forward a few months, and we find that Horrible Bob finished with a rock-solid .286/.351/.594 slash, and blasted 21 homers in only 248 plate appearances—good for 2.0 WAR. His defense was about league average. And his presence of mind has won at least a few fans over to the point where you’re beginning to hear the whispers…
Lucas McNeill’s shot at second base was a bust… the whispers say. Some of Frazier’s homers still haven’t landed… they boggle. Better than Lucas McManning… they taunt.
That’s right. Some people look at the prodigious power him Frazier’s bat, and his .351 OBP, and come up with the answer that it’s time that Horrible Bob Frazier should be inserted back into second base full time and that Lucas McNeill be relegated back to first base … or relegated back to AAA if that replacement level line keeps happening … which it won’t … please, God, tell us it won’t … but if it does, it doesn’t matter to the fans who see Bob Frazier as their guy.
“Give him 600 plate appearances last year and you get 50 homers,” on inebriated fan said. “That’s horrible enough for me!” Then he pounded another PBR and fell off his chair.