You should probably leave the insults and derision to someone better at it, like me. Quoting Ben completely out of context just makes you appear to be a fool.

It would be somewhat surprising, considering his past history of knee problems and his age/lack of consistent performance track record, to see a club offer big bucks and a 3 year guarantee to Gerut ~ I am still fairly sure that the Padres can sign him to a 2 year deal at a decent price.

I think this is true of basically everyone though. The further behind in the count you are, generally speaking, the worse you hit.

“Until the early part of the thirties, third base was not considered the domain of sluggers and high-average men. Defense was the only quality requested of a third baseman. This is reflected in the presence of so few third basemen in the Hall of Fame; the old joke was that third basemen should pay their way into the park because nobody knew who they were. [Harlond] Clift was one of the men who helped change that image.”

Even as late as the 1960s there were third basemen like Clete Boyer or Aurelio Rodriguez (and in the ’70s the Padres tried to turn Billy Almon into a third baseman!), but I don’t think that a player like that would get anywhere these days. (I could be wrong, of course; I’m not as up on the current situation as I once was.)