Yeah, We Need Some Offense

But not nearly as much as some people seem to think. Several of this team’s biggest problems are bound to work themselves out. Chone Figgins isn’t going to hit .198 all year. Jose Lopez isn’t going to hit .214 all year. And while Chone Figgins and his low contact rates are a little bit disconcerting, a month into the season, there still isn’t any reason to believe that either of these hitters are going to suck all year. Yes, they are sucking, but both of them, and to a point, the entire team, have also had their fare share of bad luck. The team has a BABIP of .276 and a HR/FB% is 3.5. They just aren’t going to keep hitting this badly.

Don’t misunderstand this and think I’m saying that this team does not need to make any offensive changes, because that could not be further from the truth. While guys like Figgins and Lopez are good players that are going to start hitting, Ken Griffey Jr. and Mike Sweeney aren’t. If you want to point the finger at anyone for the way this offense has been performing, look at the most obvious problem on the team, and point it at the people that are allowing it to happen. If we were getting even league average production out of the DH spot, this team’s record might look a whole lot different.

Yet Mike Sweeney is still on the roster, and Don Wakamatsu continues to start Griffey and place him in the heart of the order. Yeah, the fact that Chone Figgins and Jose Lopez haven’t been producing has certainly had an impact, but they aren’t going anywhere, and they still have some healthy regression coming their way. The way they’ve been hitting, though, has fueled the idea that this team needs to add a giant bat to have any chance at contending, when that just isn’t true.

So stop talking about Prince Fielder, stop talking about Adrian Gonzalez. Those are pipe dreams. This team doesn’t need a 6 win bat to contend in the AL West – all they need to do is fix the roster, and bring in a competent DH.