First of all, his strike-zone judgment is as sharp as anybody’s, like I was mentioning the other day, but the downside is that unlike most of the players who have such good judgment (like Helton or Chipper, for instance) he has a real hard time making contact when he’s been fooled and goes reaching. The three players (over 400 PA’s) to fail to connect at least 40% of the time when they swung at pitches outside the strikezone were Mark Reynolds, Kelly Shoppach and Iannetta. Ryan Howard was next on the list at 40.9%. Iannetta’s K rate only avoided dipping to those players level because he laid off more, but as long as there’s an inability to make contact outside like that (even just to protect with two strikes) it means that his AVG and OBP won’t reach their full potential.

I don’t think he’ll get 32 hrs. Maybe if he was going to get 600 at bats. I think around 25 is a reasonable number. Also, his babip at home last season was .276 which should rise (although his babip away was somewhat high). Iannetta’s k rates in the minors were lower than last season. Without anything empirical backing this, it seems like learning to foul pitches off (like the ones that fooled Iannetta out of the zone) would be a skill a hitter with a good eye can develop somewhat. Maybe that number can go from 40 to 30 or so…

I don’t disagree with you, but I can’t help but feel somewhat sentimentally attached to newspapers. I don’t like that they might one day be a thing of the past. One of the things I’ve always done is save the newspapers for big events, including sports. Like after the Broncos Superbowl wins or the papers from Rocktober. Or other historic events (I even ordered a back issue of USA Today after the election, because I couldn’t find any anywhere to buy).

Also, this is totally not sports related, but what happens to comic strips? When I got a paper, I always read the comics. Now that I don’t, I still go online to read news, but I rarely seek out comics.

Poor, poor newspapers.

Personally I think newspapers will be around for quite some time. Maybe smaller, and only one per city, but they are a unique medium.

I’ve wondered what happens to the writing talent. What happens to Tracey and Kreiger?

I think ink and paper news will be around for quite a while. Too much invested for it to just fold up (no pun intended).

But I think we could look at him as an heir for Helton as much as anybody else in the system. I know there are some problems with this defensively, but the bat is probably our best option there so long as McKenry and Rosario continue to develop.

That would give him three more seasons at catcher, which hopefully won’t be too much on him as long as we have capable backups taking some of the burden, and then a move to the easier spot. An internal only 2012 lineup could potentially look like:

C: Rosario/McKenry
1B: Iannetta
2B: Gomez
SS: Tulo
3B: Stewart
LF: Smith
CF: Fowler
RF: Gonzalez

Which is better overall than anybody else’s internal options in the division at this point (the Giants, in a perfect world w/Crawford, Kieschnick and Gilespie are pretty close).

my reaction to the question was similar, and Harding, by shooting it down, began to make up for that silly “Bucky on teh trading blockz!!11” nonsense.

for 2009

As long as they can remember how to hit with RISP…if it is a repeat of last year in those situations, they are probably doomed to a mid-division finish no matter what the pitching does.

Furcal hurts, but Manny’s the one that I’m really nervous about. If he goes back to LA, our road to the division gets quite a bit tougher.

please oh, please I hope he changes his mind again and signs with the Braves