Jonathan Papelbon, no. 58

Birth Date: November 23, 1980 in Baton Rouge, LA

Height/Weight: 6'4", 230 lbs.

College: Mississippi State University (He majored in educational psychology. Can you just imagine him around kids? It'd be a hoot.)

Contract: Last year he made $425,500. He'll be eligible for arbitration in 2009 and he'll be a free agent in 2012.

Last season Papelbon played in 59 games and pitched 58.3 innings. He was credited with 1 win, 3 losses, and 37 saves. He faced 224 batters and gave up 30 hits. He struck out 84 and walked 15. He allowed 12 runs, all of them earned. He allowed 5 hitters to hit home runs (2%). All of which contributed to an impressive Walks and Hits per Inning Pitched of .771.

In the American League Championship Series, he pitched 5 innings. He allowed 3 hits, walked 2, struck out 3, and allowed no earned runs. During the World Series he pitched 4.1 innings, allowing 2 hits and striking out 3.

I don't know why I like Jonathan Papelbon. I've said before that it was because of the way he speaks but I'm not really sure about that. I think it's because he comes across as completely guileless. He like a naive little kid; he wants to be in the Hall of Fame, he's going to become a cadrillion-aire because of some crazy investment in a website that makes you wear special pieces-of-flair buttons in public.

Sometimes he seems like the type of guy for whom things just work out. Like he's a lucky bastard and every thing's always coming up Jonathan. Other times I worry that he might be a roman candle; not just in baseball but in life, as well. [aside: I know that may sound trite. You do a search for Kerouac and Roman Candle and you get 35,000 hits, mostly of people saying things like "I only hang out with roman candles" "I wish I were a roman candle" "I'm going to get a tattoo of roman candle on my ankle" blah, blah, blah and you wonder if they ever actually read On The Road. Being a roman candle isn't a good thing. By the end of the novel, Dean Moriarity had lost the use of his hand, was divorced thrice over but was living with his second wife. He'd come back to New York but couldn't remember why and couldn't form a coherent thought. In the last scene, Sal Paradise was riding in a chauffeured Cadillac uptown and Dean was left in the cold, alone, to walk back to the train station.] Regardless, he seems like he would be a cool person to hang out with; like he'd be up for anything as long as it was new and exciting.

In the past, he's had problems with his shoulder. The last two years he's gone to Spring Training with the intention of being a starting pitcher but his shoulder wasn't anatomically capable of performing the work. If he keeps his shoulder strong, then there could be many more years of Papelbon shutting down opposing batters to come.