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Happy Anniversary AJ!

He may not be able to? If he was injured, as was suggested, then it could just be a matter of getting healthy. Players make adjustments all of the time so it may be a timing mechanism such as a foot tap or could be him raising his hands higher.... who knows for sure? I'm not an expert I'm just making an observation. He clearly gets out in front of the off speed stuff and when he does make contact his bat is already to far through the zone and he hits it to the right side and he hits it weakly. Hamilton is a pretty strong guy and his fly ball distance is down so it could be the weight loss. Could be a lot of things! And it could very well be that he is in decline mode and won't ever get back to a semblance of his former self. I like to think that he will make some adjustments and at least improve from what he did this year. It may not be enough to make us happy but if he at least gets back to some type of productivity it will soften the blow over the next four years.

It really could be all of those. The article was not a defense of Hamilton but more of focusing on the real main issue which is his pitch recognition. If he fixes that he can fix a lot of things. He should have some type of minor bounce back just based on some of the BABIP issues I discussed but he will only have a real true bounce back if he is able to adjust to the off speed stuff.

Well that was the main point I was trying to make about his pitch recognition on off speed stuff especially sinkers and changeups. If he can't adjust we are in trouble. He has been unlucky this year and has been the victim of the defensive shift but as I said a lot points to his pitch recognition skills. If he fixes or at least moves back towards that then he'll be more like what we expected. However I don't think he'll ever get back to being what he was before 2012.

Rageous I explained myself in the prior post. I am speaking about quality of contact off the bat. I think the sentence is pretty clear about that weak contact. Did you like the article?

That lineup card also says "POS Players"....

Rageous, O-swing is only one component of plate discipline. Here is the definition from FanGraphs as one example: Plate Discipline statistics tell us how patient a player is at the plate, and how good they are at making contact with pitches. There are a wide number of these stats: O-Swing% : The percentage of pitches a batter swings at outside the strike zone. Z-Swing% : The percentage of pitches a batter swings at inside the strike zone. Swing% : The overall percentage of pitches a batter swings at. O-Contact% : The percentage of pitches a batter makes contact with outside the strike zone when swinging the bat. Z-Contact% : The percentage of pitches a batter makes contact with inside the strike zone when swinging the bat. Contact% : The overall percentage of a batter makes contact with when swinging the bat. Zone% : The overall percentage of pitches a batter sees inside the strike zone. F-Strike% – The percentage of first pitch strikes. SwStr%: The percentage of total pitches a batter swings and misses on. My point about his plate discipline had more to do with the quality of the contact he makes which isn't strong (which is reflected in his average distance for example). Additionally those changeups and other breaking balls are not coming off his bat well (weak contact).

There are times where I am so glad that I didn't make a post....

If we can get Eva Longoria it would be a home run (which is no different than having Blanton as a starter)!

Much ado about nothing....

I think so, actually. He's multi-positional capable (he's played a lot of SS), he had a career .363 OBP/.423 SLG (.786 OPS) in the Minors. He has a bit of pop in his bat (something on the order of 10 HR's over a season in the Majors). He hits left-handed pitching well. He's not to bad against RHP. That is why I could see him platooned with Lindsey at second base due to Taylor's struggles with LHP. In a platoon you would get close to the equivalent production of Howie Kendrick. That is why HK is probably expendable in trade. Field could see time at any of the infield positions except first base. Edit: Also Luis Jimenez has struggled against LHP in both the Majors and Minors this year. In the hypothetical situation that Jimenez plays third base next year, Field or Green could platoon with Lindsey and Jimenez with Aybar switch hitting out of SS. It would make our team younger, more athletic, and get some good energy into the clubhouse with Jimenez's presence.

It seems like Field will become that super utility backup hitting against left-handed pitching. If Kendrick were traded you'd probably see Field and Lindsey split time at second base.

I think Green would only stick at third base long term if he bulked up and developed a bit more power. In the end I think it depends even more on who is traded (i.e. Kendrick, Aybar, et. al.).

The Biogenesis clinic got Vernon's order mixed up and gave him the wrong type of PED's.... Pop-up Enhancing Drugs.

Well Vernon could take some extra infield practice by bringing his glove with him to his at-bats.

For those of you looking to pick up saves and/or holds pick up Danny Farquhar of the Mariners. His ERA looks hideous but all of his peripherals are screaming awesome closer and he just picked up a save last night over the struggling Wilhelmsen.

Obligatory: "The piece!"

But I thought you said that MLB has been, for YEARS, improving discovery and punishment of the issue?

Links to all of the discovery and discipline over the last several years? Only last year did we see Melky Cabrera, Bartolo Colon, and Yasmani Grandal receive suspensions. Your post is a little naive in thinking that MLB has been actively working on the issues up until the last two years. This time around the New York Yankees have a $35 million dollar interest in having MLB enforce it this time. They (meaning the MLB and the Yankees) are doing their best to shame A-Rod out of baseball because of a LOT of money. They have been aware of PED use throughout baseball for years but when it has impacted them in such a large monetary fashion they suddenly take mammoth action. I can do without the BS from MLB. They had their chance years ago to make these grand announcments and didn't do so. Yes A-Rod deserves to be punished I said that in my original post. But I can do without the 5-day wait to announce it (on the day that A-Rod returns to action) and I can do without MLB's feigned shock and awe campaign. Just hand out the suspensions and move on.

I don't like A-Rod but I can't help but feel for him a little bit because MLB has ignored this problem for years and has done little to enforce it. It just reeks a little of Selig trying to grandstand and act like he suddenly found out about this pervasive issue and has moved fast to squash it. A-Rod certainly has done wrong and may have even tried to block and tamper with the investigation so he does deserve punishment. But I can do without MLB standing up on its soapbox.

That is a bit unfair of you to say pritchett. How does any projection system project numbers? They are made with educated guesses. No projection system is flawless and my "bunch of guesses" were made looking at Chris Nelson's Minor League and Major League numbers, making some adjustments for the Pacific Coast League's propensity for good offense (and Coors Field for that matter) and then making as educated a guess as I could about what those numbers would be. I'd invite you to actually go look at Chris Nelson's Minor League and Major League numbers and decide for yourself if I'm really that off?

In hindsight I probably shouldn't have used the word 'average' simply because it may cause the very confusion that it just did. What I meant simply was that most replacement level players are at or near the '0 WAR' mark give or take. There are certainly outliers to that statement for certain teams but generally it is close to the truth. With regards to this years numbers, yes it is a bit of a cherry pick. However, Callaspo is starting into his decline years and his defense is only going to degrade over time, which is where a lot of his previous years value is originating from. I don't think it is inaccurate to project him based on this years numbers. Nelson is the very marginal resource but I think it is unfair to look at his career averages since he has not really been given a consistent amount of playing time in his short Major League career. In his partial (basically half) 2012 season in Colorado he hit .301/.352/.408 with 9 HR's. Yes that is Coors Field but even accounting for park factors he had a productive 1/2 season. His minor league numbers support that projection. If anything my projected line might be selling him short a bit. So with all due respect AJ I think you are completely undervaluing Nelson to make your counterpoint. Many of you preach about how WAR calculation for defense is inaccurate yet want to use it as the basis of the argument for why Callaspo is good (and that may not be you who does that AJ but others here do). I'm not saying that Alberto didn't have value, he did for a while there but what I am saying is that Nelson is equally good in a different sense and is a bit younger with more speed. The real point I am trying to make is that did we really lose anything in the Callaspo trade? I definitely don't think we did, period.

I projected out his numbers based on reduced AAA numbers plus what he did this year. I also projected out rough AVG, OBP, SLG based on reduced minor league numbers (which don't translate as well into the Majors obviously). It just happened to come out to his career average. If you look at his minor league numbers the stats I posted are NOT a stretch by any means. Just happenstance that Nelson's projected numbers were nearly identical to his actual career line to date.

So why is buying low on a crappy pitcher good? Again please point to his peripherals (FIP, xFIP, SIERA) over any of his major league seasons and tell me that is something you want in our rotation? I'm not saying there is a chance he won't improve but do we have the time and patience to wait over the next 3 years to find out? He's not a strikeout thrower, he's more of a finesse guy and for Kendrick you can and should get more in my opinion. I just don't see the "better" pitcher that you are saying you see. And my point about Blanton was simply that if we want a 4.60 ERA on our staff we might as well just roll Blanton out instead of trading for a different version of him.

Scotty I don't know why you and some others on here want a Tampa pitcher with a SIERA of nearly 4.00.... Hellickson is just not that good and he is not an impact arm. He's sporting a 4.60 ERA this season? Tell me why he is so valuable, please? We might as well roll Blanton out every 5th day and hope we get a 3.50 ERA game out of him.