More Chone Figgins Ramblings

There was no way I wasn’t going to use this picture.

Steven Bisig-USA TODAY Sports

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. There have been more Chone Figgins “begging to be apart of a team” stories. In Bill Dwyer’s piece for the Los Angeles Times, we get another tidbit of info from Chone Figgins, himself.

"“It kind of says it all,” he said, “when you have just signed a $38-million contract [four years] and they pinch-hit for you in the fourth game.”"

Really? It seems all Mr. Figgins does these days is reminisce on how much harder he’ll try, how much of an unfair shot he was given. It’s almost as he’s put this whole Seattle failure on everything else. Whether it be him getting pinch hit in the 4th game, or whether it be himself not trying.

Oof. There are of course, two sides to look at this, you could think. There’s the side of “look at how much Chone has shown that he wants to be back, maybe we have an solution to his woes, just as long as he goes out there and gives 100% then things should be fine.”

Or the side I tend to fall on.

“So you have  a team willing so spend a decent percentage of it’s payroll on you because you’re on of the best leadoff players in the game and you add so much versatility, and you yourself essentially gave up on your career because you were making money?”.

I think what bothers me the most about this was the pinch hit situation. I can’t pretend to know what Figgins had going through his head in that instance, but it’s incredible to think that this is a man who is a professional baseball player, made it all the way up to the Angels organization, and stuck for 7 years, played well enough to get a 38 million dollar deal from the Seattle Mariners and allows something as minuscule as a pinch hit in the 4th game to affect him this much and potentially snowball into larger issues that derail his entire career?

It’s sad to see how far Figgins has fallen. And who knows, I could be dead wrong about him, and he’ll surprise and become a pretty decent player. (Also, brace yourself for him leading off opening day playing 2b) But as of right now, it’s hard to look at him with a positive light taking all things into account.