Is it time for the Padres to consider benching Hosmer?

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Prison Bitch

I disagree with every bit of that.

Hoz was coming of a 4.1 win season age 28, when he became a FA. He was 4th in the AL in obp (behind guys named Trout, Judge, Altuve). He hit 25 jacks with a swing carrying tons of untapped power potential. He never misses time. He can run well. Teammates and coaches love him.

To suggest that was only worth 2-3 years at 15/per is nothing but revisionist history.

Except that I said it at the time. There was nothing in that high-maintenance, low loft swing of his (or his track record) to suggest that his 2017 season was likely to be the norm going forward. If you're projecting you're looking at a 20 HR 1b w/ solid OBP skills and mediocre defense.

So, what, a slightly better version of Justin Bour? Bour got non-tendered and took a 1 year, $2.5 million deal just to find a place to play. The only meaningful distinction between Bour and Hosmer is that Hosmer makes more contact. But Bour hits for a lot more power. Hosmer makes more contact because he has a slappy mess of a swing that avoids Ks in favor of slowly hit groundballs. That's not exactly an ideal trade off.

'Revisionist history' says he's worth a minor league deal with a spring training invite. Giving him 3/$45 would've STILL been overpaying based on what he's provided.

And no, there's no chance he'd have ever had to settle for that because there's always a team or two willing to bite on Boras's voodoo. But that doesn't mean that the contract wasn't doomed to fail from the start - it absolutely was.