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Q.  Quick, Hobson - the good news.

A.  Gotta start with the bad, sorry.  Take heart; it will make the good seem that much better.  When a migraine lets up you feel like oxygen is a precious gift.

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Q.  Could he be a Raul Ibanez?  Frozen out of the bigs until his late 20's, but then blooming (very) late)?

A.  He could NOT, no.  There is as much chance of Anthony Vasquez becoming Jamie Moyer as of Garrett Jones becoming Raul Ibanez.

Raul always had a solid EYE ratio; Jones will never have a decent EYE ratio.  EYE is not only about telling a ball from a strike early in the flight of the ball ... one must also have a quick bat launch.  I don't know of any player in the major leagues with a slower bat launch than Garrett Jones.

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Q.  Slow bat (launch), lousy EYE, NL player .. why would Jay-Z be interested?

A.  We assume that the idea is Jaso for HANRAHAN and WILHELMSEN SP.  Then Smoak for Garrett Jones.  Smoak for Jones would be a HURRY HURRY HURRY idea, since Jones is ready to go.

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Q.  Maybe he's really a .516 SLG man now, a legit cleanup hitter?

A.  Maybe he's a cleanup hitter ..., no.  No he's not.  He just had his career year at age 31.  Part of BaseballHQ's shtick is === > they know how to look at 5-year scans and pick out "Career Years."  I've gotten kinda practiced at it too.  2012 has Career Year written All. Over. It.

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Q.  What is the basis?

A.  How do we loathe thee?  Let us count the ways:  

1) Lousy EYE.  Which is part of what rules out an arc up at age 32+.

2) Slowwwwww bat launch (hence the helplessness against LHP's, which is a permanent feature of this facility).

3) Swings at oodles of sucker pitches (OOZ% very high) - and did in 2012 also.

4) Swings and misses constantly - SwStr% very high.   No BB's to compensate.

etc. etc.  You're just talking about a mistake hitter here.

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Q.  Comps?

A.  All comps are going to be hurkin' LHB bats with light-tower power and bad, bad weaknesses.  Garrett Jones is what Carlos Peguero would be if everything broke right for him.  Which makes sense, given the attention that the M's paid to Peguero.

Find a good comp for Jones and you're going to get the name of a mediocre player -- Brian Daubach, Lee Stevens, Ben Broussard, Eurebiel Durazo, Reggie Jefferson, somebody like that.

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Q.  ANY logic to trading John Jaso for him?

A.  That's NOT what they'd be doing.  A Jaso-for-Jones swap would literally be a howler to exceed the Doug Fister deal.

And -- there's no arguing, as they unfortunately did with Fister, that our guy has peaked and we're "selling high."  NOBODY could watch John Jaso hit and predict him to do anything but keep hitting.  And Wedge held Jaso up as THE only 2012 Mariner who took pro AB's on a day-in, day-out basis.

Nah, they couldn't be down on Jaso.  Gotta be an attempt to clear catcher, and bring in a closer.  Then Smoak-for-Jones is what we're looking at.

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NEXT

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