When you look a little deeper, 2005 looks more like the outlier here – a year in which he was quite lucky in general, with a high HR/FB % and a high BABIP. And if that’s the case, and 2005 was more of a factor of luck, while ’06-08 were closer to his true talent, ’09 is really tough to peg.

It could be another case of having a lot of good luck (the .360 BABIP certainly suggests it), or it could be him entering his prime and reaching his potential. That’s where the risk is – it’s really tough to tell. So yeah, you’re right, he is risky, and you bring up a valid point about the other big risks we’re probably going to be taking in 2010.

What it comes down to, is whether or not Felipe Lopez makes sense, really depends on what other moves are made. So, as it is with everything right now, we’ll just have to wait and see.

-That’s a pretty wide range. He could be excellent, or he could be a win worse than Jose Lopez. Again, that’s why Hudson is worth more right now. You have a way better chance of predicting what you’ll get from him. And Felipe’s 2007 may have been an outlier, but what about 2008? He wasn’t much better (0.8 WAR) that year. The trouble is, with his WAR inconsistency and a league change on top of it, we really have little to no idea how he would perform in Seattle, which leads to my next point.

Looking at Dave Cameron’s plan, there are already plenty of risks built in there. Think about it: if the team follows something even close to Dave’s plan, what will that mean in terms of risk? Signing a pitcher like Sheets? Risk. Starting Moore, Saunders, and Tui? Risk, risk, and risk. It seems to me that Dave understands a team needs to balance risk with some higher-probability players if it is going to have a decent chance of succeeding. Some of a team’s risks are going to fail.

“but he has proven that he has made the adjustments to be an above average ball player.”

-I mean this seriously, because I don’t know: what did he adjust? Is his swing different? I’ve barely ever seen him play so I really don’t know.