Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
February 28, 2003
I Don't Know's on Third:

Bob Hohler of the Boston Globe discusses the third base situation in Boston. Bill Mueller comes off looking like a class act:


Mueller knew when he signed with the Sox that Hillenbrand might remain with the team on Opening Day.

''What happens when you get into a situation where they have an All-Star player in front of you or on the team already is, you look toward helping out and doing whatever it takes to build a winning team,'' Mueller said. ''At this point in my career, I'm not going to be looking back and saying I hit certain numbers. Nobody's going to remember how much I got on base. They're going to remember who won the World Series or the American League East. That's what I'm focused on, getting to a team that's committed to winning instead of worrying about numbers or other things that are pretty much selfish.''

Numbers figured prominently, though, in Boston's interest in Mueller. An above-average defensive player, Mueller also is a career .286 hitter with a .370 on-base percentage. Hillenbrand has hit .280 with a .313 on-base percentage, though he has shown much more power than Mueller, hitting 30 homers in 1,102 at-bats compared with Mueller's 41 homers in 2,674 at-bats.

However, general manager Theo Epstein appears to view Mueller's team-first attitude as valuable as his other attributes, just as the Sox consider Hillenbrand a team player. And everyone who has played with Mueller, including his former San Francisco teammates Doug Mirabelli and Alan Embree, have endorsed Epstein's evaluation.

Thus, no one snickers when Mueller says with all sincerity of his collegial competition with Hillenbrand, ''You shoot for winning the playoffs and World Series first, then let all the other stuff trickle down.''


After the last two years, I worry about Mueller's durability. But I think he would be a better offensive and defensive third baseman than Hillenbrand. The Red Sox have made a number of good moves this winter, and it will be interesting to see how they resolve this situation.


Posted by David Pinto at 10:42 AM | Baseball