Player Profile: Karim Castro

Karim Castro is a sentimental favorite of mine.  He leapfrogs a couple others who have better overall numbers but fewer IP than him.  Who would have ever figured a player with a projected 28 health would end up pitching almost 1500 major league innings over the course of his 14 year career.  He also has 14 trips to the DL and is still performing at a high level.  If there was a comeback player of the year award in HBD he would have won it more than once.  He is the Chad Pennington of HBD.  His signing bonus was $7.9 million and he more than earned it over his career.  The one area he has always been hurt most by his health is in contract negotiating.  At his peak he had control over 70 and splits in the high 70's, his ratings were all star caliber, but he was never able to earn over $3.8 million per season because Lloyd's of London wouldn't touch him.  At 34 years old he is nearing the declining stage but he is still pretty good and will likely be a free agent value after the season.

Player Profile: Trevor Donovan

As with Weston a few weeks ago, it appears we are nearing the end of another era.  Trevor Donovan is currently on the Waiver Wire.  He sits at 789 home runs at the moment, which ranks second all time, but in 100 at bats this year he has 1 homerun.  It looks less and less likely that he will hit those last few to get him to the magical 800 or move further to catch Marvin.  Good luck catching on somewhere Trevor.

Player Profile: Roger Weston

Rogers Weston is a future Hall of Famer, the Ruth all-time leader in hits by over 4oo and is 5th all time in walks.  Part of his success is longevity and his ability to accumulate but he has had success enough to stay in the games.  He has been traded three times (trades included Bobby Valentin, Andre Reese, Randall Anderson, Ismael Samuel, Edgar Padilla, Damaso Renteria, and Danny Lennon).  His player cardd says he has played 21 seasons and only 17 in the majors but his stats only show 44 minor league games (6 in season 3 and 38 in season 18).  He has 60 minor league hits and 65 post season hits.

He is a 7 time all star, 4 time silver slugger and one time World Series champ. The most he ever made in a season was $9.4, this was during what was probably his worst statistical season in his prime.  He played everywhere in the field.  2b was his primary position with 1082 games but he also had 632 games at 3b, 482 at ss, 219 as a rf, and 211 as a DH.  Another 108 games are split between cf and lf.  His overall rating of 90 at its peak made him an all-star.

The question now with Weston is what next.  He is on the waiver wire currently and sits 3 hits shy of 3500.  He is 39 years old and his last two contracts have been for the league minimum.  There is not much of a chance of him contributing much to a contender but he still has the ratings to be slightly useful off the bench versus righties.  The last remaining question is whether his hits record will ever fall.