Atlanta Braves OF Targets: Nick Swisher

To start things off with the series we are going to go over, my personal choice and one of the most consistent hitters in the game: Nick Swisher.

I thought a simple positives and negatives type format would suffice.

Positives

Like I mentioned right away Swisher has been one of the most consistent hitters in the game, and you might be surprised to see how consistent he has actually been.

• Since 2005 (7 years) he has never hit less than 20 home runs.
• Since 2006 he has never scored less than 80 runs
• Since 2005 he has driven in at least 70 runs except for 1 year when he had 69 (White Sox)

Those are some pretty good numbers over a 6-7 year span. There aren’t a ton of players who go unnoticed that have statistics like that.

Over his career Swisher has put up a slash line of .254/.360/.466. So with Swisher we aren’t going to get anything fancy, but we know what we are going to get which in my opinion is just as valuable. He isn’t going to hit for a high average but he will bring a high OBP, and hit 20+ home runs.

He plays at least average right field, and has a pretty good arm. This makes me think he would be a pretty solid left fielder, which is where he would play.

Negatives

Fred loves to bring this one up when I talk about Swisher. Nick and our new hitting coach didn’t exactly get along well and he had his worst offensive season with him and the White Sox, in 2008.

Swisher’s contract is a pretty big one, especially considering he will be playing for a mid market Atlanta team. He has the last year on his contract at $10.25 million. Brian McCann is making $11 million just to give you a comparison. At what he gives us he is probably a bit over priced.

The simple fact that Swisher only has one year on his contract is a negative in itself. You don’t want to trade players for one year rentals, and that is exactly what Swisher would be.