But his career OPS vs both lefties and righties is pretty good (esp. for a 'scrub'). He is close to .800 vs L and R. That's pretty good for a backup player. Sure his BA and OBA are a bit low, but he can really slug. He seems like a David Kingman type player who can play 3B.

Mike Piazza and Frank Thomas similarly do not have jobs. Being a free agent most suited to play DH or to pinch hit (in Branyan's case) is a curse.

While I agree with your thoughts on roster flexibility, I don't know how relevant Branyan's splits from that far back are to the current discussion. Pretty much every projection system I've ever seen puts the bulk of the weight on a player's most recent three years, and over that span Branyan has smacked righties around while struggling against lefties in a limited sample.

Just a quick note to sabernar : Have you ever watched Branyan "play" 3b? He plays third base about as well as Rush Limbaugh raps. (Okay, bad joke). Branyan is a butcher out there. And there's about a hundred minor leaguers with similar skills who come a lot cheaper (that's true of Thomas and Piazza, too, which is why they're each jobless as well.)

I don't think there are about a hundred minor leaguers with Branyan's power.

I think, in general, there are a lot of DH/no-field mashers who, if given an opportunity, would hit 30 homers and provide nothing much else. Remember Bubba Trammel? Tony Batista? There's not much to suggest Branyan's better than either of those guys, except maybe reputation. Maybe a hundred is an exaggeration, but I bet every organization has at least one career minor-leaguer with Branyan's skill set, who we're not talking about simply because he's never gotten a chance to show it.

i miss bubba

Branyan has a career .807 OPS compared to Batista's .756 OPS. Batista has a career OBP below .300! Branyan could be had for league min, Batista was signed for $1.25 mil. NO comparison.

If Branyan is healthy in 2006 (big if) he would be a fine addition as a backup 3B/1B/corner OF.

Please point to the dozens of career minorleaguers that could hit 30+ HR's a year while keeping a reasonable OBP (above .320). What would that translate to an average AAA league? 40-45 HR's a year? Please.

I don't believe Russ Branyan is capable of hitting 30 HRs a year anymore. He's 30 years old, has never batted more than 380 times in a season, and his HR/AB ratio has declined from its peak 5 years ago. I would say 20-25 is more likely. But no team would give him that many at bats because he can't play defensively anywhere and he doesn't hit well enough to be a DH in the AL.
And the Batista signing was a terrible, terrible decision that the Twins are going to regret.
Does anybody remember Jeff Manto or Russ Morman? Orestes Destrade? Henry Rodriguez? Karim Garcia? Guys like that are a dime a dozen. I don't believe Russ Branyan is much better than them. He just, for whatever reason, has a better reputation. I guess it's that impressive .327 OBP...

And, just for edification, I checked out Branyan's career stats. He's never hit more than 24 homers in the bigs, and that was many seasons ago. The notion that he'll crank out 30 this year is pretty delusional...a river doesn't run uphill. Branyan is Mark Sweeney or Ryan Klesko at this point. Except Klesko is probably a better 3rd baseman.