In Praise of Dave Roberts

There's a lot not to like about Dave Roberts: lack of punch, inability to hit southpaws, and the frequent jaunts to the DL.

Still, the one thing that I've really begun to admire about him was the fact that he so often has amazing, drawn out at-bats, constantly fighting pitches off, and very seldom swinging at poor offerings out of the strike zone. He's the anti-hacktastic, disciplined opposite to the rest of the freeswingers in residence.

In fact, he would rank in the top 20 in all MLB in P/PA if he had enough ABs to qualify. To put that in perspective, no other Giant player can even sniff the top 40.

What does this all mean? Well, it builds up a pitcher's pitch count, for one. It lets the rest of the Giants hitters get a sampling of the opposing pitcher's stuff. Mostly, though, it means that he'll see many, many more pitches over the course of the season, which ultimately means seeing many more mistake pitches which he can then hit hard. That's certainly a refreshing change of pace from the rest of the lineup.

So here's to Dave Roberts, one of two Giants players whose at bats are actually fun to watch.