....... 

=== #1 - Get GOOD Hitters ===

In the American League in 2011-12, "power hitting" is pretty much the same thing as "good hitting," or at least the same thing as "reliably good hitting."  In the photo left, you can see Prince Fielder decking himself for this measly single against the Cubs.

Look.  If you could get nine Wade Boggses and Rod Carews, fine.  Get them, pay them $20M apiece at nine positions, and you'll score 7 runs per game.

But we're not talking Wade Boggs.  We're talking Casey Kotchman, and Endy Chavez, and Kyle Seager.  A guy who relies on singles, and a few walks, is not a GOOD hitter.  That's the real problem.  Little guys aren't good hitters in today's game.

***

Chone Figgins looked like a good hitter when we got him.  No XBH, but he was a .280 hitter with 60-100 walks.

He was fine precisely as long as --- > his OBP was .375.  But let that OBP drop even a little, and bang.  He's not a hitter any more.  

Relying on [1B's and BB's] only puts tremendous pressure on a hitter's game.  On the other hand, consider David Wright.  He's had bad luck and good luck, hot streaks and slumps.  Through it all, his RC per game stays over 6.0.  Why?  Because the occasional 4-base hit helps the ballclub.

***

When Earl (and 500 other managers) said, "Get power at the corners," implicitly that meant "Get good hitters at the corners."  

Earl woulda taken Wade Boggs, sure.  Earl wrote that a .380 OBP man is as valuable as a 30-homer man.  But we're talking about real baseball, in which Wade Boggs has not volunteered to play for your team this year.

.

=== #2 The Bar is High at 1B, 3B, LF, RF ===

In 2010, the Mariners disastrously chose Casey Kotchman as their starting first baseman.

The idea was, "Hey!  Kotchman is a 100 OPS+ hitter, and he's got a slick glove, so he'll be okay at first.  Besides, he's cheap -- therefore a net profit compared to salary."

Kotchman was a career .270 hitter with 50 walks and 12 homers per season.  He was a mediocre hitter with a career OPS+ of 95.  He was also susceptible to regression, which put him at his actual OPS+ of 72 for the Mariners.

***

When you play a game of Yahtzee and your first roll is five aces, you don't write "5" in the "ones" column.  You write 50 in the Yahtzee column.

If you have a 130 OPS+ hitter like Dustin Ackley, you don't write "12" into the threes column in LF.  You write "40" into the 4-of-a-kind column at 2B.

Only a few pro baseball players can play CF, 2B, and SS.  Every pro player, such as Mike Carp and Carlos Peguero, can play LF and 1B.

Therefore, in order to have as good an offense at 1B as the Angels and Rangers do, you can't put Casey Kotchman there.  You've got to put runs there.  In modern baseball, that means putting 30 homers there, folks.  Unless you want to bet your mortgage that Kyle Seager can OBP .390.

.