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Originally Posted by duncan_idaho
I would be sad for Hosmer if that's where he landed, because they're a mess and that park would suck for him, but glad for the Royals and for the money.
Need this to shake out soon. Where KC goes and what the rebuild looks is going to set the course for KC.
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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.