Originally Posted by
50PoundHead
We might squeak one out here and there that we ordinarily wouldn't have with the new approach, but the long run pretty much always rewards power and outside of Freeman, I can't see a lock for double figures in HRs in the line-up. And one would really look good in the middle of the line-up. I don't think it would make us magically into a contender, but to make the next step, we are going to need some middle-of-the-lineup help.
And you're right, if you got a power guy, you don't really care about his contact rate (unless it really stinks). The problem we had last year is that we had a ton of swing-and-miss guys (I think our swing-and-miss rate for pitches in the strike zone was the worst in baseball) and some of those guys weren't true power guys. We couldn't handle the bat that well, so that cut down on the ability to play hit-and-run and we didn't steal a ton of bases. That means we had to dent the fences to win and we didn't do that often enough.