One Man’s Trash: Andrew Benintendi

MLB The Show is THE greatest sports video game. To be fair, baseball is the easiest game to make due to the fundamental nature of baseball, which is essentially a one-on-one battle with cursory pieces in the background. Basketball, football, hockey, and soccer all have multiple players moving in synch simultaneously which increases the number of variables that need to be accounted for. Anyways, San Diego Studios has done a masterful job of putting the best product out there. This isn't an ad for The Show, though, but it's relevant for this post. In The Show, the X button is for a normal swing, the O button is for contact, and the square button is for power. But with great power comes great responsibility because while you can check your swing with the x and o buttons, it's all or nothing with the square button. Now, I don't use the square button much except in 2-0 or 3-0 counts. I prefer to just use the x button because even with the mashers, it's more than enough to drive the ball out of the park. In my early days of playing, though, I used to utilize the square button with the contact guys in favorable counts. There would be a stretch when I'd bop some over the fence which would get me to start utilizing the square button with those hitters in other counts. Like Pookie from New Jack City, the more I hit out, the more my thumb moved to the left side of the controller. Even while the average and OBP declined, and the strikeouts increased, the adrenaline rush from connecting kept the gig going. Kind of like our debt-fueled economy, which is a separate topic for another day. This reminds me of Andrew Benintendi. He always showed some pop, so he wasn't some Juan Pierre-esque slap hitter, but he was known more for his power/speed combo. But then he started sniffing the power and bulked up, gaining over 20 pounds of muscle, mashing that square button.  The strikeouts increased while the average and overall production decreased. As a result, he is no longer in Boston. Trash or treasure?