Craig Calcaterra wonders if Pablo Sandoval‘s quest for respect is about money or weight.
But I do wonder if some of the stuff from the Giants about his weight over the years irks him. It’s easy to forget about it in the afterglow of the World Series, but Sandoval may believe that he has been treated a bit like a child over the years in San Francisco. I’m not saying that’d be a rational thing — he’s an athlete and it’s not unreasonable for a team to have expectations about the shape its athletes keep themselves in — but it has been pretty public and maybe that bugs him.
Maybe he just doesn’t want a weight clause written into his contract.
Part of the Giants’ obsession with Panda’s weight is his own doing. Tony Gwynn got rather heavy the second half of his career, but the Padres never bugged him about it. Yes, winning eight batting titles will do that, but Tony was smart about it.
When Tony’s weight increased above his normal 185 lbs, he listed himself in the Padres media guide (and Baseball-Ref) at 199 lbs. That was his listed weight the rest of his career, when it was obvious he weighed much more.
Sandoval should have listed himself at 200 lbs or so early on and never changed it, like Tony. Then the Giants would have left him alone.