As I prepare for my eighth Eagles concert, to take place this Saturday in Tulsa in the new BOK Center, the Wingnuts have been on my mind lately. This is mostly because of a talk I had yesterday with their radio guy, Steve Schuster, about the future of the team, particularly next season’s roster.
Schuster and I had this talk between slow-pitch softball games. We lost both, but I’ll give credit to Schuster because at least he showed up. That’s more than I can say for five others. I’m not bitter or anything.
Anyway, I want to write about each player and his chances to return next season. So I’ll start doing that here and sporadically post until I get to each of the 21 players who finished the season on the active roster. We’ll start with Brenan Herrera.
This is a pretty easy one. Herrera will almost definitely be back. He spent 2008 as an LS-1 player, which means he was in his third full year of professional baseball. As an LS-2 next year he’ll get a raise but it won’t affect the salary cap too much because he won’t be among the team’s highest-paid players.
Performance also has a lot to do with Herrera’s likely return. He batted .317, second on the team and was among the team leaders in doubles (27) and extra-base hits (37) while leading with five triples. He drove in 51 runs, which tied him with Stephen Pearson for the team lead.
Herrera has gap power to all fields and can muscle up occasionally to get one out — he had five homers in 2008. He also flashes a nice glove at second base with decent range. The one thing he has to work on is plate discipline. He walked just 15 times compared to 67 strikeouts.
The strikeouts aren’t worrisome, but the walks are. Herrera had a respectable .347 on-base percentage, but it takes a lot of luck to hit .317 with only 15 walks. That means a lot of balls that are put into play are going for hits. Herrera definitely has the tools to be a .300 hitter consistently, but he should rely on pitch selection, not luck, to make that happen.
I’ll also give points to Herrera for being an Eagles fan, though he says he doesn’t like “Hotel California” or “Desperado” — is that possible? And he was always a go-to quote after games. So if I’m a Wingnuts fan, I hope to see Herrera back in a ‘Nuts uniform next season. Wingnuts fans, you’ll probably get your wish. I put Herrera’s chances of returning at: 99.9 percent.
See you next time.