It's Xavier Nady!

Xavier Nady is kinda famous within this travesty to mankind we call GOI. For all you die hard baseball fans who wasted 9 bucks watching another Adam Sandler tank job called "I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry" would have seen Xavier Nady's blurred out face batting for the Mets on television in one of the scenes. I've seen enough baseball to basically know every players silhouette, so when I saw Nady's swing in the background, I instinctively yell out "It's Xavier Nady" so the whole theater can hear me. Trust me, it was the most entertaining part of the movie. All four..errr..three members of this blog were in attendance and got a good laugh, at me, or with me, who care. And it has stuck as an inside joke for generations..in blog years.

Nady has always been and remains a 4th outfielder, as is his role with the Cubbies. Nady has always been a 1-tool hitter, given that he has career Matt Kemp power. Yet, no other skills have developed for the 31-year old righty. Does this warrant a 1-year contract that can be worth as much as $5.35 million? The best comparison I can give you is that Nady is a slower, worse defensive version of Ryan Spilborghs. Then why didn't Hendry just get Ryan Spilborghs instead? He's even one of Hendry's Boys! Don't believe me, well look here and here and here. With Nady's average at best defense, low on-base, and insignificant speed, I would not expect more than a 1 WAR season. Still he's better than Joey Gathright so that's a positive.