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While I actually have no love or particular optimism about Kotchman, there are some things I will note:
1) Each one of his BAD spells in the majors was immediately after being traded in the middle of a season. Remove THOSE periods, and his career numbers jump up - and he's a high .700s guy at EVERY other point in his career.
2) While I have no sense of how Safeco will impact him - I think the Angels are a REALLY bad team to go and start making assumptions about "park effect" based on BABIP. The club, which once upon a time had some really nice defenses, have let their DER plunge in recent years. Simultaneously, they went out and specifically assembled a team that is bulging with over-the-norm BIP guys, (like Chone, for instance).
Sorry, but if you have a sucky defense, plus a team BUILT for screwing up BABIP tables ... then your park is gonna "look" hitter friendly. So, while I accept that Safeco does have a legit pitcher edge ... I think attempting to paint Anaheim as beneficial overstates the case.
I also get the sense that there is a lot of work being done to find reasons to support the notion that "unliked" guys will fail. Until this thread, I've never heard it argued that ANY lefty-hitter is going to be significantly hurt by Safeco. But, suddenly there's a bunch of spray-hitting data that is being used to imply Kotchman is going to be beaten down like a righty?!?
My perspective is we've gone past the forest, the trees, the branches, the leaves, and we're starting to try and base total production of a hitter based on the bruising on the the belly of a tree beetle.
1) Hitters hit MOSTLY because of how good/bad they are.
2) Years of data says: Safeco helps lefties and hurts righties.
3) Hitter state of mind ROUTINELY overwhelms all other variables.
He's a career .742 OPS (.749 in the AL). His WORST OPS for any team he started a season with (with reasonable ABs) was .764 in the first half of 2009.
I cannot think of a single 27-year-old in history that would be assumed to hit 40 points under their career OPS (in about 2000 PAs), for no particular reason.
He's a .750 lefty hitter, moving into a park that favors lefty hitters, and moving into a situation where the organization is quickly getting VERY adept at making previously underappreciated players feel like they are truly valued.
What just KILLS me is that Kotchman is numerically ... Carlos Pena minus 5 HRs ... at least until Pena landed in Tampa at age 29, and got one more shot to prove himself. Pena's best season before Tampa was .810.
Not saying Kotchman is going to start hitting 40 dingers. He's not the same type of player. But, Kotchman is ONLY 27 ... and in the perfect situation to give him a CHANCE to rekindle some of that '07 magic. And based on how miserably he hit after both mid-season trades - I'd put a TON more weight on his state of mind than on some phantom "he's not the right KIND of lefty hitter in Safeco" theory.