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FORWARD:

As the site mulled the various off season adds, Rick stated that Stubbs was his hoss.  This set me about thinking about some sort of stat that wasn't affected by Coors field so I could mull whether I liked Stubbs or not.  Both zone discipline and speed off bat stats are affected by Coors, as off speed pitches curve less in Coors, and are easier to square up, but these stats are as park and league independent as any that I know about.

Since Hittracker online is fun, (check it out if you haven't yet done so), I decided to peruse it to learn what there was to learn about Dew Stubbs.  This morphed into the following article:

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Moe talks alot about smash factor.  That is loosely defined as the maximum amount of blunt force trauma that can be delivered to a ball, when it is hit on the screws.  ESPN's Hit Tracker online is a small public taste of the Pitch Fx Kool Aid, where every home run since 2006 is catalogued, and charted by speed off bat, distance and and angle of launch.  The undisputed king of Hit Tracker is Giancarlo Stanton, who hits the most balls the hardest every year that he plays.  Stanton's best hits top out at 117-118 miles per hour off the bat and approach 500 feet.  In looking at Stanton's numbers, 17 of his homeruns were hit harder than 105 miles per hour.  Stanton's competitors for the smash factor crown are guys like David Ortiz, Edwin Encarnacion and Mike Trout.  While SF is one factor out of many, it might be useful to look at the Mariners' level of SF or lack thereof.  I collected every home run hit harder than 105 miles per hour in 2014 for the Mariners and most of our possible trade targets.  Why 105 miles per hour?  I don't know.  That seemed like a good number, as it generally represents a homerun in the most pitcher friendly parks, even Safeco.   Here are the results:

Our best SF home run hitter is Mike Zunino.  Whatever his offensive shortcomings may be, hitting like a feeb is not among them.  We already knew that though.  Miller, Lomo, Smoak and Hart are the only guys who flash double digit speed off bat.  This tells me that SF isn't everything, even if I am convinced it is something.  

For the trade target smash factor test, I did Zobrist, Dunn, Viciedio, Quentin, Byrd, Stubbs and Willingham.  Zobrist's readings were too faint to be detected by the bash-o-tron.  He's just not that kind of hitter.  The SF king of possible trade targets is Adam Dunn.  His SF has translated into a .798 OPS in US Cellular, or a 122 OPS+.  He is a free agent after this year, and he would probably love to add post season heroics to his resume.  Dunn would be a nice add.  Big Donkey doesn't really field or run or do anything other than DH though, so it is unlikely we are going to go there.  We already have LoMo, Smoak, Hart and Montero vying for the DH slot.  Wait.  None of those guys should feel real secure about their jobs.  If Dunn is available, and doesn't cost us DJ Peterson or someone, we should collect him.

Byrd, Stubbs, Viciedio and Willingham also provide nice smash factor.  And, they can play the field, (maybe not Viciedio), where they are competing with the likes of Dustin Ackley and Endy Chavez.   Any of those guys would be a good get, but the Coors and NL transitions are always suspect.

If you want a hitter you know is going to do above average, and isn't going to cost the farm, WIllingham and Dunn seem like good choices.  They both hit in the AL Central, the division that has Detroit in it, and they both hail from pitcher's parks.  That means no adjustment period, just plug and play.  Like an iPhone.  From what I understand playoff teams and their fans are not into uncertainties, try outs and adjustment periods.  Those things are best reserved for teams that are rebuilding.