Travis Hafner's spring continues. ESPN's epic baseball dude Jerry Crasnick writes: "Encouragement comes in bits and pieces. Hafner hit two bolts in a recent spring training game against the Angels, including a line drive that nicked Jered Weaver's ear on its way into center field." Let's be honest. None of us will know about Hafner until the season starts, but the fact that he's doing anything at all in spring training is something. Would you rather the Indians go another season without him? Would that be epic?
Here's another take on Hafner from Anthony Castrovince of Indians.com: "Fans' expectations, however, run a little deeper. And until Hafner's home run total matches his jersey number, they will probably remain skeptical about his ability to return to Pronkian levels of success."
Juice him up and let the chips fall where they may, I say.
Hopefully his past production wasn't once in an epoch.
Until his batting average reaches his weight, he's of no use to this lineup, and I would in no way bat him in the middle of the order. There's no reason to pitch around Hafner anymore. He can't hit for any power, and he rarely even puts the ball in play. It's like having a #9 hitter trying to protect guys like Martinez, Choo and Garko. Tribe officials better look at Haf's performance with their eyes, not their hearts or rose-colored maybe's, because I just don't see any progress at all, as far as putting wood on the ball.
Eric, what choice do they have? It's not like a Browns contract, they can't cut this guy and keep their money. They're stuck with Mr. Testosterone and his contract for four more seasons. It's going to be like when everybody counted down the years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes and seconds waiting for Danny Ferry's contract to finally end.
The best the Dolans can pray for is he gets a career-ending injury and the insurance picks up his salary. That would be epic.
Right now he's nothing but epoxy on the roster.