Serious question ... Are ya sayin' the have little talent?
Let's run through the lineup and how they're hitting vs. how we expect them to be hitting (this being our "regular" lineup)
Morgan - having an off year, I guess you could chalk this up to the hitting coach but he was never particularly good.
Desmond - if anything he's hitting for a little higher average than I'd expect. His patience at the plate is REALLY bad and he strikes out way too much, but he's also a rookie so that is not the worst thing in the world. Not everyone can be Jason Heyward.
Zimmerman - one of the best offensive players in the NL. He improved in nearly every offensive statistic this season.
Dunn - Dunn is the same as ever, has a ton of power, strikes out a lot and walks a lot. He is walking less this year, which is worrisome, but I doubt this had anything to do with Eckstein--he was probably trying to pad his average during his walk year.
Willingham - extremely high OBP and decent average, hits for good power. If he weren't hurt he would be having one of the better seasons in the NL.
Morse (hopefully) - if anything is hitting better than I'd expect, he will probably regress in average next year but that's to be expected.
Bernadina (possibly) - he is just not a very good hitter, but I don't think it's because of his approach at the plate. There's a reason that even after we released Elijah Dukes he spent most of the season platooning with Willie freaking Harris.
Espinosa - a rookie who had good plate discipline in the minors and is getting adjusted to the majors. He has a lot of power and I don't see anything regressing about his hitting approach... not that anything could have in his brief time here.
Pudge - he was a great hitter long ago, but he has always had roughly the patience of Guzman and he can't hit for the same kind of power / line drives he used to.
Ramos - he didn't have great patience or numbers in AAA and I'd expect that to continue here, unfortunately. Hopefully his power and defense make up for it.
Our bench: crap.
Like I said, I think our players are maximizing their talents. The only real concern I have with their
approach is what I perceive as somewhat of a lack of patience at the plate, but that is very hard to instill in most hitters and no hitting coach on the planet undervalues it at this point so I doubt Eckstein falls into that category. Unfortunately we are just burdened with a lot of hitters who never projected to be super amazing hitters.
