Does Ruben Amaro Know That Walks Are Valuable?

Count the ring you nerds.

Amaro is talking about Jimmy Rollins’ pursuit of the club hit record and is comparing Rollins to Mike Schmidt.  As transcribed by Scott, here’s what Amaro said:

“Yeah, we were checking it out. In fact Schmitty was in the booth yesterday when we were talking about it, and, um, I think it’s about a thousand difference in, ah, plate appearances. Pretty amazing. But their batting averages aren’t that different, which is kind of… weird. I don’t quite understand it.”

You can go to the Crossing Broad site and listen to the clip yourself if you don’t believe it.  If you don’t want to go there, trust me, this is a faithful transcription.

This is truly astounding.  Ruben Amaro Jr., the Phillies General Manager, in 2014, doens’t “quite understand” how Mike Schmidt and Jimmy Rollins can have the same career batting average but have about a 1000 plate appearance differential.

And don’t misunderstand - this isn’t a case of someone being prompted to talk about something without preparation.  As the quote shows, Amaro has been thinking about this for at least a day.  He was not caught off-guard here.  And he’s not saying “I don’t quite understand” as an expression of amazement.  He truly sounds bewildered on the recording.