MLB Trade Rumors is reporting that Johnny Damon has signed with the Tigers. It's $8 million for one year, no deferred money and no option year. They're also saying he turned down $14 million for two years from the Yankees. If true, I gotta think he'd have been better off staying with the Yanks.
And does Paul Janish have weak wrists? (No Piazza jokes, please.)
The Reds have a fantasy camp for fans. Anyone over 30 years old who is willing to shell out $4,500 bucks gets to go to the Reds spring training complex and pretend to be a player. They give you uniforms, you are coached by the Reds staff and treated by the Reds trainers. You play a couple games a day, and in the end, you play against some retired big leaguers. (Too bad the Yankees don't do anything like this. Though it would probably cost $10,000 or more, and still be sold out.)
Anyway, "Slyde" of Red Reporter went to Reds Fantasy camp this year. One of the benefits was that he got to hear inside info from the Reds staff. One of the tidbits he came back with was from a coach who thinks Janish can't hit, because his wrists are weak:
Have I mentioned on this site the assessment I heard of Janish? “He’s got weak wrists. When you shake his hand, there’s no strength there. Most big leaguers have a powerful grip when you shake their hand, but not Janish. He’ll never hit because of that.”
They went on to explain wrist strength is something that a player must be working on early on. It’s not something you can just decide to fix. It changed my whole perspective on Janish. I’m not excited by Cabrera, but I’m also convinced that Janish isn’t going to put up better offensive numbers unless he gets lucky.
I dunno. Even if he does have weak wrists for a major league player, I can’t believe you can tell that from shaking hands. Surely he has enough strength the squeeze someone’s hand if he wants to. He’s still pro athlete, who probably has a lot more strength than the average Joe. I would assume he’s shaking hands that way by choice – either because his dad never told him nobody likes a limp fish handshake, or because he doesn’t want to get into those "who can squeeze harder" competitions. Or because he’s protecting his pitching hand. ;-) (Can a guy who can throw 90+ mph really have weak wrists?)
And if he does have weak wrists...shouldn’t the team that drafted him have been working on that over the past six years?
Labels: Paul Janish
