Actually I think the people who had bad feelings about Melky were mostly looking at his overall career record which is by and large quite bad. While you could conceivably look at his record and see an early potential wasted for years and perhaps a light turn on in 2011, the notion that he was bad in 2010 but generally good otherwise is off base. 2010 isn't even his worst year, and nearly his entire time in NY is poor.

First of all, people who were upset about Melky (of which I was not one, btw) were upset because he was not Carlos Beltran. I remember the authors on this site conceding that Melky is an above average defender outside of CF and a decent bat. The "bad" feelings came from the realization that the Giants, who are in desperate need of a big bat, bought themselves a very decent, but underwhelming, presence in the line up. Secondly, you are correct to say that Manny Burris could develop into very nice bat. He could also hit 73 homers and make everyone forget about a left fielder named B. Bonds. Manny could also also regress into the player he has been his whole life: a slappy speedster who can't get the fat part of the bat on the ball consistently. Saying that I, or anyone else, can be wrong is meaningless. The plethora data strongly suggests Manny is not a likely source of production and no Spring Training performance will change that. I'm not to saying that I won't cheer for Manny or hope that he proves me wrong and you right. I'm only lamenting at the fact that the optimism for production at 2B rides on a fleeting performance against pitchers who are "working on their stuff."

I don't really know what to say to this. You're reading (way, way, wayyyyy) too much into Spring Training stats. So, I'm not sure what to tell you. Burriss hitting .400 this spring means nothing. Really, it means nothing. Find me anything that states having a good spring correlates to success in the majors and I'm all ears. But, Burriss has so many factors working against him I don't have time to rehash them all. And even if I did, I think you're just going to ignore them anyways. >> If that were to be the case, wouldn't you want to advertise the fact that you were wrong, dead wrong? No. I've never said I was wrong on anything. Ever. This is the Internet after all.

Let's see, Chris. Recall how many postings indicating how badly people felt after the Giants acquired Melky Cabrera in spite of his past (good) record. I think there are too many quick (no pun intended) judgements amongst baseball fans. We really need to permit ourselves the luxury of accepting a ballplayer's credentials on how he is doing now. Like human beings in other aspects of the game of life, athletes can surprise and are not altogether predictable. With the advent of the Jamesian statistical methods and offshoots, people have become too attached to the possibility of accurate predictability. As in other areas of life, we just need to become a wee bit (a lot) more humble regarding our sometimes vaunted ability to predict. Whatever the statistics may say about predilections, baseball, just like life, is not altogether predictable. So let's just see whether Emmanuel Burris will continue his incredible spring into an awesome regular season and, by doing so, assist the Giants in winning another division championship, perhaps a pennant and maybe, just maybe, another World Series. If that were to be the case, wouldn't you want to advertise the fact that you were wrong, dead wrong?