Non Roster Invitee: Joe Thurston - Red Sox
By john • Mar 1st, 2008 • Category: boston red sox, joe thurston, non roster invitee
Joe Thurston comes to Red Sox camp like the rest of the non roster invitees the team signed. He knows he has no chance of making the team yet has benefitted by getting a wikipedia page decked with useless facts about his career by some diehard Sox fan.
Sure I could have taken the time to say Bartolo Colon is still fat or Bobby Kielty is ugly but I wanted to write about a non roster invitee. Colon will give all he’s got and probably head to Triple-A when he doesn’t make the team and wait to see what happens with Curt Schilling and the youngsters. Kielty well he sucks even when he is healthy so who cares.
Joe Thurston was drafted by the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1999 and after putting up average stats in the minors for a few years got a September call up in 2002. He would recieve the same in 2003 and 2004 and following a trade to the Yankees was released in October 2005.
After a solid run in the minors with the Philadelphia Phillies he again had a cup of coffe in the majors before being released.
The Washington Nationals invited him to spring training and promptly released him when he failed to make the team. The Phillies signed him and he spent last season in Triple-A hitting .300/.367/.425 in one of his strongest minor league years to date.
The 28-year-old heads to camp hoping to win the job at second for Portland, the Red Sox Triple-A affiliate. Frankly I think he has the job in the bag but we’ll see this spring.
Since he has very little play time we’ll just post his career minor league stats here. In nine seasons in the minors Thurston has a career .293/.345/.416 line. He’s hit 56 home runs and scored 637 times, driving in 491 runs in 1087 career games.
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