Here We Go Again -- Photo Of Skinny Pablo Sandoval Surfaces, So Now Some Fans Are Optimistic He'll Do Well Next Year
I swear to God, some Red Sox fans have the memory of a goldfish. This picture was getting shared around the Twittersphere today, and it appears to be a significantly thinner Pablo Sandoval than the version of him that we saw show up to spring training this year, who also detonated a belt with his own gut a month later.
Listen, I’m not saying that it’s a guarantee that Sandoval will be a complete failure (again) in 2017, just as he has been in the first two years of his five-year pact with Boston. Clearly he’s motivated to succeed next year if he looks like that right now and the 2016 baseball season isn’t even over yet. Dude’s been working hard. Props to him for that, although I don’t know what else he’d be doing, considering he only had 6 at-bats this year, so he’s had plenty of time on his hands to actually get in shape.
But it’s not even November yet. Let’s see what this dude looks like in February when he shows up to spring training, because if I recall, he did the same exact same thing last year. He posted a picture of himself looking all slim during the offseason:
And then the motherfucker came to spring training looking like this:
All I’m saying is, let’s pump the brakes on the Sandoval praise here in October. We’ve seen this song and dance from him before with the whole skinny offseason picture, but how did that subsequent season turn out? Yeah, he looks great right now. But what’s he gonna look like once he runs through the gauntlet of food-eating holidays that we’ve yet to dip into? And I think we’re forgetting the most important aspect when it comes to Sandoval and his performance on the field.
He’s played well as a fat guy before. Several times, actually. He could roll into spring training looking like a house next year, and still have a pretty decent season. It’s not likely, but it could happen, because it’s happened before. However, he plays better as a skinny guy, like in 2011 when he worked his ass off in the offseason, and actually came to spring training resembling something close to what a professional athlete looks like, and hit .315 with a .909 OPS. But ideally, you want the guy that you’re paying $95 million to actually be in shape. That’ll help him the most defensively, where he was absolutely atrocious for the Red Sox in 2015, and even in spring training this year. Dude couldn’t even bend over to field a ground ball.
I feel like that’s not asking a lot when you’ve made that kind of investment, but then again, I look at the Red Sox, and think, “Well, what the fuck did you expect? You signed a fat guy, and you got a fat guy.” Let’s hope that Sandoval actually stays in shape and performs well to start the 2017 season…so that the Red Sox can trade him and call up Yoan Moncada, who, hopefully, by then will have learned how to hit a curveball, run the bases, and play passable defense at third base.