Agreed. And LaRoche is a whole lot of offense.
Not in the context of 1b, he's not. If he were playing a more-demanding defensive position, then maybe, but in the context of 1b, he's a middle-of-the-road guy at best.
He's having so far this year his best offensive season in several years. And still there are 8-10 1b who are hitting better - Votto, Fielder, Encarnacion, LaHair, Dunn, Konerko, and Carpenter are all better this year right now, today. And Goldschmidt, Mitch Moreland and Chris Davis are all basically equal.
And that's not counting the Pujols, Texeira, Gonzalez, Morneau, Helton group who all have years of history saying they're better than LaRoche and better than they are hitting right now. It's not at all unlikely that LaRoche ends up somewhere between 15-20 in the list of 1b at the end of the year.
And I'll say again, this is LaRoche AT HIS BEST. His year this year is better so far than every other year he's had, save 2006 and maybe 2008. He hasn't hit this well in 3-4 years and despite that, he's still middle of the pack at best in MLB. He is what he is - a solid 1b option who will give you 20-25 HR, 80-100 RBI and play above-average 1b defense. If you have good power coming from other places in your lineup, he doesn't hurt at all and he's not going to keep you from making the playoffs. But he's not "a lot of offense" at a position where "a lot" means 35-40 HR, 120-150 RBI, 350+ OBP, 550+ SLG.
