I haven't searched for it but has anyone stated on the record what Ackley is going to work on in Tacoma? I'd like his approach to be "swing hard at first strike you see, if you miss repeat process until on base or out".

I have a very difficult time believing that Dustin Ackley is going to the plate thinking about OBP. I think, very obviously, there is a problem with his approach. But to say that stat geeks got inside his head is probably simplifying things to far too great an extent.
If you look at his minor league numbers, it's clear that selectivity is a big part of his game. It's also clear (and well documented) that he has superior contact skills. Is it possible that in the minor leagues, he was able to go with what pitchers would throw, and given his superior batting eye, and the poorer strikezone command of minor league pitchers, simply allow pitchers to put him on base via the walk? This, as opposed to certain other types of hitters that strike terror in the hearts of pitchers and force them to the outer edges of the strikezone. Is it possible that his superior contact skills allowed him to exploit the weaknesses of inferior pitchers in a way that simply doesn't work at the major league level?
It would be interesting to get some insight into what he's working on at AAA.

Thanks for the update G! Would like to see M's give him every chance to be that #3 hitter instead of leadoff. Swing away Ackley, do some damage! Let Smoak draw those walks in front of you in the 2 hole :)

I get a bit frustrated at times with the hostility of some to advanced statistics. I get equally frustrated with people that go so far down the rabbit hole of sabermetric thinking that they think that there isn't any other knowledge worth knowing.
Metrics are measurements. That's all they are. In baseball, what we're mostly measuring is performance of one kind or another, i.e. what actually happened. When we aggregate those measurements and start looking at the patterns statistically, we gain certain kinds of knowledge about what works and what doesn't; what winning teams really look like, etc. When we start adding in adjustments like park factors, we can add even more refinement to those numbers, so that we start to understand the context under which a certain player or group of players performed.
The numbers are a good thing. They help us understand what's really happening because that's what they measure - what really happened.
On the subject of hitting, the numbers can tell us a great deal about what a good hitter looks like, or what various types of good hitters look like, as characterized by their performances. What I don't think they help us with so much is understanding where good hitters come from, which is what I think this whole dustup is about. We don't really have a solid understanding of how a player becomes a good hitter. We know selectivity is helpful, in that it's generally better to not swing at pitches outside the strike zone. We know having good contact skills is helpful. We know that swing mechanics and reflexes are important. But we also know that within the set of hitters that are successful in MLB, that some are more selective than others and that some have better contact skills than others and some have better swing mechanics and reflexes than others. The formula that works for any individual hitter seems to be some combination of all of these, but since all players are different, that formula won't be the same for everyone.

I wanted to go watch Ackley and crew tonight but am dog tired. I look for Lonnie's reports to see how they are enjoying the thin air. Good article with the comments. Sabermetrics or any formulas should never be an issue. As said above, those are tools that have their place. It doesn't replace athletic skill, training and strategy for each pitch and at bat. As was said above, swing at strikes. Baseball requires thinking. Too much thinking can mirror being passive. During a game I look at pitcher's command efficiency to look for trends. That helps confirm observation. Ackley was a natural hitting machine in college. I hope he can find that balance again between being aggressive and selective.
I am interested what all of you think of how he is actually swinging now....when he does swing.

If you read Wedge's follow up comments, it actually seems like his sabermetrics effect on young players point is not about Ackley specifically. Talking about Ackley just seems to have gotten Wedge going on a related topic that bugs him. I don't think he meant that Ackley himself is changing his approach based on sabermetrical analysis or influence, just that Ackley has gotten into a passive mindset, that Wedge also associates with sabermetric ways of thinking about the game. That a lot of brainy young hitters like Ackley are undoubtedly AWARE of even if they don't explicitly use them on the field.
How did Ackley get here? Who knows. I tend to subscribe to the Unified Theory of Mariner Hitting Failure - which is basically that the M's cheap ownership put way too much pressure on too many young guys to succeed all at once, and led them to measure their personal success based on achieving things at the plate that were unnatural to them, which set them up to flounder. How many lineup roles has Ackley been forced into? I'm not too surprised if he has come out confused about what his objectives are. Maybe that confusion is unusually disabling to him, because he's a personality type who gets affected by it...who knows?
I guess again, this is why I don't put so much blame on Wedge. He just hasn't had the firepower and he's had limited choice but to put young players in roles they weren't suited for (yet at least). Everybody can't bat 7-9 with no pressure! Someone had to be 1, 2, 3, 4 in the lineup.

and some times players just get sidetracked from their natural talents. Ackley is and will be a hitter, but I've never seen him appear to be so lost as he has the past month. I can't claim to know the problem, whether bad coaching or what's in his head. What I do suppose is that is isn't the same ego/stubbornness of League/Noesi with two strikes. Seemingly you could offer them coaching, back it up with stats, and those self-confident idiots would still throw predictable meatballs. Ackley seemed to have lost all confidence and memory of how he used to hit. Maybe Wedgie is right, or not, but clearly there was something clouding Ackley's head to the point he couldn't hit himself out of a paper bag. Look's like he could be figuring it out in Tacoma, and let's hope he can sustain it. Once he does, just let the man hit. Stop trying to make him into something else.