Thursday, February 21, 2008

Ladies & Gentlemen...Russell the Muscle!

I'm sure 94% of people who read this blog know this already from other news sources, but just in case, the Brewers signed Russell Branyan to a minor league deal this past week.

I LOVE this move. Russell Branyan is probably my 17th or 18th favorite Brewer of all time, mainly because he holds some ridiculous career stat lines.

Lets forget the fact that somehow Russell has somehow hit 121 home runs in his major league career (wow), and just meander over to his minor league stat page. Branyan's 1999 Triple A season for the Indian's minor league affiliate has now become my favorite statistical season.

395 AB's
.208 BA (HA)
30 bombs (out of 82 total hits)
187 strikeouts
one more time...187 strikeouts
447 plate appearances

Folks, this is why I love baseball. In 1999, Russell Branyan took a piece of wood up to the plate 447 times, and struck out 42% of the time against minor league pitching.

Oh BTW, he has made at least 2.6 million dollars playing baseball for a living.

Welcome back to the Org Russell.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

How does someone get called up after hitting .208 in AAA?

Anonymous said...

He sure as hell doesn't get cheated when he steps up to the plate. That guys HACKS. I don't think I've ever seen anyone hit more shoulder high fastballs out of the park (or whiff at them for that matter). Definitely one of my top 20.

-Krey

Anonymous said...

I think he still holds the Miller Park record for longest HR. I'm pretty sure it was off of Greg Maddux. The ball hit the middle of the scoreboard, and it was still going up when it did. Long live Russell the Muscle.

highplaya said...

Now if only the Brewers would sign Jose Hernandez. Then we would really have a solid left side of the infield.