Drew Stubbs

Count me among those who welcomed the move down in the order for Drew Stubbs. His .325 OBP isn't going to cut it for a leadoff guy.

That being said, I haven't by any means given up on Drew. He hasn't even played in two full seasons' worth of games at the major league level - 42 in 2009, 150 in 2010, 76 so far in 2011.

One distressing aspect is, of course, his strikeout rate - exactly one-third of all his at-bats this year - and the fact it has slowly worsened rather than improved.

A couple stats to ponder, from fangraphs, for the 2009, 2010 and 2011 seasons:

Line drive % of balls in play - 21.1 - 15.5 - 19.6
Infield hit % of ground balls - 18.5 - 12.0 - 10.3

It would certainly be nice to see Stubbs trying to get on base via bunt more often (only 3 attempted this season), but this is held back by the fact that, well, he's terrible at bunting.

Back to the original issue of strikeouts, fangraphs provides a window into why he does so frequently. He recognizes strikes (and swings accordingly) right along with league average. And in fact does a better job than average laying off balls outside the zone (swinging 25% of the time, compared with 30% average).

The problem is he doesn't make contact when he swings. Only 56% of the time (68% average) for balls, and 82% (88% average) for strikes. You might be saying, "but I see him strike out looking all the time." That might be so, but more contact earlier in the count would go a long way toward preventing it.