Add new comment

1

But, from my perspective, there is a LOT of cherry-picking going on regarding Cust.
He hit 4 HRs in ST - (to lead the team).  That is hand-waved away as irrelevent, while simultaneously stating that he has absolutely, positively ZERO pop left in his bat!?!
Mind you, *I* said BEFORE ST 2010 that Griffey was absolutely done - and he followed that assertion with a completely dreadful ST with one dinger on the last day (IIRC), and never hit another.
To assume that 100% of the pop has left Cust's bat, one *MUST* assume that it left it between March and April of 2011.  CLEARLY, his eye hasn't changed, (his 0.55 K/BB is identical to his career average). 
I mean, *I* look at his batted ball stat and the 54% GB% compared to his 40.5 career number is the one that leaps out at me.  The other stat that leaps out is infield fly%, which (like his HR%) is ZERO. 
What I see is a picture of a guy who is seeing the ball as well as ever - but who is swinging over the top of EVERYTHING.  Why isn't the ball sailing?  Because he hasn't hit a ball "squarely" all season.  Maybe that means he's finished.  But, he wasn't swinging over everything in ST, and that was less than a month ago. 
As Doc said - you CAN be done at age 32.  But, if you look at his 2010 splits, his *ENTIRE* drop in power was against lefties.  His power against RHP in 2010 was as good as ever.  Now, his 2011 splits are completely in bizarro land. 
If his eye was different, I'd be worried.  If his G/F ratio was normal and his HR/F ratio was tanking, I'd be on board that he's lost his turbo boost.  But, BECAUSE his G/F is so dreadfully out of whack, to me, it's pretty obvious (from a stat perspective), that he's topping everything. 
The danger I see is that when Sexson slumped, I think the club encouraged him to cut down on his swing and just make contact - and it killed whatever shot Sexson had to recover.  If they're doing the same thing, Cust is dead, too.  Cust *CANNOT* survive as a slap hitter.  But, his steady K rate tell ME that his bat speed isn't the problem - (else he's be late on more 2 strike FBs). 
Ultimately, though, I see the Cust situation as one where - you stick with him for one simple reason.  you have *ZERO* better options at the moment.  Bradley is NOT a better option, because Bradley is reliably unreliable. 
The much larger concern for me is that Cust could be another nail in the coffin that Seattle is literally making hitters worse.  (Kotchman is hitting .333 with an .844 OPS at the moment for Tampa).

Filtered HTML

  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <blockquote> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd><p><br>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

shout_filter

  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <blockquote> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.