Joseph Thurston Minor League Statistics & History – Baseball-Reference.com.

Brooks Conrad Minor League Statistics & History – Baseball-Reference.com.

I said it doesn’t matter who wins the competition between these two. That’s something of an exaggeration. I should say, it maybe doesn’t matter, and if it does matter, there’s nothing to be done about it. Their qualifications are pretty much the same — they’re both infielders who can’t play short, who have hit okay in the minors but not in the majors — and there’s no reason to choose one or the other as a better bet. It’s a coin flip. Now, it’s possible one would perform much better than the other in the majors, but you can’t tell which one. So you might as well choose Conrad since he’s already on the 40-man.

At any event, I kind of look upon this little battle as a gift to the manager. I think Bobby always has had a soft spot in his heart for this type of player, because he was this type of player — an infielder who couldn’t play short, and who played for three organizations before he got a major league shot at the age of 27. He even had similar stats, though in Bobby’s time those stats were better, and he was probably a little better player.