Evan Drellich tweeted a link out to this Providence Journal piece over the weekend (yeah, I'm trying to catch up on everything I missed) on why free agents choose the teams they do, and we get an interesting look into David Ross.
Maybe you remember David Ross, who was Brian McCann's backup from 2009-2012. Turns out that the Astros offered him a one-year deal to be the starting catcher in 2009, but the Braves offered two years as a backup.
Ross:
I went with the two-year deal because I wanted security at the time. I’d
been bouncing around a little bit. I wanted to just stay in a place and
see where my career was going. It was the best decision I ever made.
Who was the Astros' catcher in 2009? you may be asking. You probably have scrubbed the image of Pudge Rodriguez playing in 93 games - with Humberto Quintero serving as primary backup. J.R. Towles even played in 16 games for the '09 Astros. Pudge signed late - March 20, 2009 - so clearly Ed Wade was scrambling for a catcher after Ross signed with the Braves on December 5, 2008. Pudge would hit .251/.280/.382 in his time for the Astros (Quintero posted an exactly similar .662 OPS). Ross hit .273/.380/.508 in 151 PAs for the Braves in 2009 and .289/.392/.479 in 2010. So that backup catcher thing worked out pretty well for Atlanta.
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
