Moises Alooooooooooooooooooooou!

I've been to one Florida Marlins game ever. Luckily it happened to be in 1997 when they were actually good. I remember the announcer calling up to bat Moises Alou and really getting into it, with all the fans yelling Aloooooooooou too. Not that anyone was ever going to get excited about Alou playing for their team now anyways, but it seems like Alou is going to retire.

This isn't new news, but I'm going to comment on it now I guess. Alou is obviously playing in the WBC but it doesn't seem like teams are rushing to sign him. He doesn't want to play just to be a part time player, and I don't think anyone is looking for Alou to start. Add in the fact he's always hurt, it's not a real surprise he's calling it quits.

Alou has had a really good career, I'm sure he's outhit several Hall of Famers but realistically he's not going to sniff that. He probably does deserve a little sniff though, we owe that to the guy who pees on his hands just for baseball, not survival.

When arguing the merits of someone's Hall of Fame case one often hears "this isn't the Hall of the Very Good", that the Hall is truly for the uber best. I don't disagree with that. They should make a Hall of the Very Good, maybe have a wing in the actual Hall of Fame with bobble heads instead of plaques dedicated to the guys who weren't quite good enough. They could then re-adjust the Hall of Famers who actually are just Hall of Very Gooders. Alou could then be the leader of the Hall of Very Good.

We can all agree Alou has had a great, not outstanding career, but should it necessarily be over? Alou's ego and GMs will decide that, but he clearly has something left. He can't stay on the field but in the last two years he's batted .342. Granted that's only in 377 at bats, but that's still .342. In 2006 in SF he batted .301 with 22 hr. And only a few years ago in 2004 he smacked 39 homers.

When he's been healthy he's hit. When he's not healthy he's not playing or if he is he still hits. Basically he doesn't have some wrist injury that he plays through, killing your team with a .240 avg in 400 at bats. So, Alou + replacement level is probably a pretty good player. CHONE projects him to go .276 14 and 46, not bad right? Alou had a 2.3 WAR in only 328 abs in 2007, and in a paltry 50 abs last year he was still worth about a million.

I'm not surprised Alou doesn't want to sit on a bench this year and I'm not surprised that no team wants to hand Alou a starting job, but the guy can still help a team.