Daniel Hudson is playing stellar baseball for the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2011. Picked up in a trade with the Chicago White Sox in return for Edwin Jackson last summer, the D-backs are the ones who got the better end of the deal.
↵Hudson pitched nine innings of one-run baseball, while adding three RBI -- including his first career home run in the sixth inning off of Dodgers starter Ted Lilly.
↵One inning later, Hudson delivered a two-run single off of Blake Hawksworth, and Kirk Gibson's bold move to keep his starting pitcher in the game paid off handsomely.
↵Hudson is now hitting .359 on the season, racking up 12 RBI and leading all MLB pitchers in runs batted in. With only 39 official AB's for Hudson in 2011, he is tied with several name-brand position players, including Kosuke Fukudome, Tony Gwynn, Jr., Mike Cameron, and Nick Punto -- all of which have had at least 91 at-bats.
↵Fukudome, amazingly, has had 270 AB's! He makes $14.5 million! And people wonder why the Cubs never win anything.
↵But this isn't an article dedicated to pointing out the embarrassing personnel choices of Cubs management. Really, we're celebrating a 24-year old pitcher who has 10 wins, an ERA of 3.56, and with a salary of $419,000, is one of the best deals in baseball.
↵Edwin Jackson, on the other hand, is making $8.75 million for the ChiSox this year. He is only 7-7 with an ERA just under 4. With savvy moves such as these, the D-backs are looking smart and sitting pretty in the NL standings, just 3.5 games back of the Giants in the West and 5 games back of the Braves for the Wild Card spot.