The other day I took a lot of heat for supporting Jeff Francoeur, but more specifically for appreciating the intangibles that he brings to the game. I'm not really sure why, but there's a group of fans who seem to become extremely up-set whenever intangibles are brought up. Look, I agree baseball is 90% talent/skill but professional athletes are so close in there skill set that the other 10% plays into the outcome of a season. I'm not saying I'd rather have David Eckstien play short stop because he has so much more grit then Jose Reyes. But two players of equal talent can have significantly different impact on the exact same team depending upon their personality and the collective personality of that team. I seemed to be on the unpleasant end of some ridicule over using Hadley Ramirez as an example of a player who I felt brought a significant amount of these intangibles to the table, especially in the last series of the season for the past two years. In 2007 on the...
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