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Originally Posted by DJ's left nut
That does seem an odd fit for them; Petco made some changes to give lefties a fair shake a couple of years ago but it's still pretty damn hard to do much in that park, especially for left-handed hitters.
That said, Hosmer is more of a line-drive hitter who puts some balls over the wall that are simply liners that don't drop. He may actually be able to take advantage of the OF there to become more of the modern day Will Clark I kindof expected him to be.
The obvious difference between him and Clark is the strikeouts. Clark was a tough AB every single time he went to the plate. Hosmer, as you know, is noisy as hell up there and falls into prolonged funks where he couldn't hit a beach ball with a tennis racket. But if he went to SD and realized that he can simplify his approach, drop closer to 18-20 HRs and make it up by hitting more doubles and getting on base more, it might actually be good for him.
4 years ago I looked at Freddie Freeman and Eric Hosmer and had no idea who the better player would be. Then in 2013 Freeman seemed to embrace ihis line-drive approach. He came to really understand his strengths as a hitter and exploded by catering to them. I'm not convinced Hosmer's ever truly done that. Perhaps getting to a park (and getting a big contract) will allow him to focus less on the difficult task of turning liners into homers and more on the much easier job of turning groundballs into liners.
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Petco has less OF grass than the K, so I'm not sure it caters to Hosmer's strengths any better than the K does, but it's possible the change in scenery and big contract help Hosmer adjust (though it's just as possible the pressure from those items takes him the other way).
He took off in May of last year by embracing an approach that included hitting the ball up the middle and the other way more often. I think he can continue that and be a consistent hitter (.300/.360/.475-.500, depending how many HR he walks into)... at least as long as his natural talents can support his crazy, complicated swing.