Random Thoughts

[Lark11]

Well, I'm really beginning to wonder if Daric Barton has more power than people previously believed. I wrote about him in the All Undervalued Team and mentioned one of the common concerns about him was that he wouldn't hit for enough power to be a quality first baseman. Well, I'm beginning to wonder if that's true.

In his September call-up, Barton displayed very good power, cranking 4 homers in only 72 ABs. While most, myself included, were discounting that as nothing more than a small sample size anomaly, Barton responded by cranking a homerun in his first training action.

In addition to Barton dealing with lingering injuries over the past couple of seasons, he's also had to deal with a difficult home ballpark. I stumbled across this article on MILB.com, which talks about the difficulty of hitting in Raley Field due to the setting sun and the batter's eye.

web.minorleaguebaseball.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080205&content_id=344306&vkey=news_milb&fext=.jsp

All of which leads me to wonder, does Daric Barton have more pop in his bat than people realize? For me, I could see Barton's upside as being the next Edgar Martinez. One of the very rare guys who can post a line of .300+/.400+/.500+ over his career. The power was the only thing missing, but as of now I could see him hitting 20-25 homers on an annual basis.

[SteveO]

For what it's worth, Barton cranked his 2nd homerun of the spring.

He's gonna be a good one, but I'm glad the Reds have Votto instead. ;D

[The Duke]

SteveO said:

For what it's worth, Barton cranked his 2nd homerun of the spring.

He's gonna be a good one, but I'm glad the Reds have Votto instead. ;D

Lets just hope Votto's slow start in ST is ust a slow start and he looks more like the guy last september when the games start counting.