ruben ice

A’s All-Star Brandon Moss, who has 76 home runs, 220 RBIs and a .848 OPS in two and a half seasons with the A’s after being passed over by the Phillies in favor of – excuse me while I gather myself – John Bowker, speaks to Eno Sarris of Fangraphs. Here’s a portion of their exchange, which includes a sarcastic interjection from Adam Dunn:

Sarris: Well I wanted to talk to you because I loved that piece that Jane Lee did on you last year, where Ruben Amaro, Jr said you couldn’t hit a major league fastball.

Moss: That was… that was a long time ago.

Dunn: Wait, let me hear about this.

Moss: I don’t want to bring this up. It’s old history.

Dunn: Tell me. Who’s this?

Moss: Ruben Amaro.

Dunn: Who’s that?

Moss: The GM for the Phillies. I was with the Phillies.

Dunn: The GM. They have no say.

Moss: Well, yes it does matter, if you want to be called up. I was having a good year and they went out and traded for a guy because they needed left-handed bench bat and someone asked, you know Moss is having a pretty good year in Triple-A for you guys, why do you need to go outside. He was like ‘We just don’t believe Brandon Moss is consistently able to hit a major league fastball.’ And I was like, that’s really all I kinda hit. It’s my best pitch. Everything else, I just hope I hit it. If you’re here, you’re like that. You better be able to hit that pitch. It was a funny comment and I laughed about it. Okay, if that’s how they feel, I can’t do anything about that.

Sarris: We track numbers per type of pitch, so we have you down…

Moss: I know. I know. I’m actually a big sabermetrics guy. I love Baseball Reference and FanGraphs, I love the both of them. Lots of cool things.

Sarris: Yeah and we have you down as a good fastball hitter, so he got that one wrong.

Maybe if Amaro, or anyone in the Phillies’ front office, checked the most basic of basic advanced stats they would’ve known this. But hey, Bowker worked out great for the Phils during his career’s Jeter-esque… um, victory lap?

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I added the fat part to the headline, just for fun.

H/T to (@walshy025)