Fans of any team become familiar with 'their' players. Whether you love them or hate them, fans know which hitters have power, (Lopez), speed (Ichiro), defense (Guttierez), etc. But, in the era of free agency, teams transform with the speed of Kafka. The Mariners in 2009 were a team that swapped out a lot of players - some before the season (Branyan, Chavez, Griffey, Guttierez), some during (Wilson, Langerhans, Hannahan). As Jack Z begins the second verse of Bowie's classic "Ch-ch-ch-changes", let us take a look at some of the new faces joining the Mariners for 2010.

1) Milton Bradley - LF/DH - (switch hitter) -- What everyone knows is the guy with the game company name is an emotional keg of dynamite, viewed by most pundits as more likely to end up on America's Most Wanted than on the American League All Star Team. What is not quite as well known is exactly what Bradley is as a hitter. He's been very good (at times), and certainly the club hopes he will be a positive offensive contributor in 2010 -- but in what ways?

His career line is: .277/.371/.450 (.821) -- An average hitter in terms of batting average and power, but with an exceptionally good batting eye. His combo of injuries and suspensions have limited his playing time to 126 and 124 games the past two seasons, (his career high is 141 with the Dodgers in '04). So, he cannot be counted on to play 150 games. But, his 162-game average (if he were ever to play 162 games in a season), he'd get 32 doubles, 20 HRs, 78 walks and 122 Ks. That's a nice walk total - but it's not in the same class as guys like Abreua or Dunn who routinely get 100. What Bradley is ... is a solid, but unspectacular hitter, who does almost everything just a bit about above average, but is really not exceptional at anything in particular. And this is the rub -- a jack-of-all-trades hitter is perhaps the hardest of all to appreciate. It will never FEEL like Bradley is doing that much - or helping the club as much as he actually will. His reputation as a real contributor is tied up mostly in the two seasons ('03 and '08) when he hit for a .321 average. Given Bradley's 100 points of patience and 170 ISO, is he's posting a .321 batting average, he'll be posting an OPS above .900. But that is career year territory. That's dream season - not what to expect.

So, what should be expected from MB? Well, the first variable is that he's a switch hitter. So, how does he do each way? Batting right-handed (against lefty pitchers), his career line is: .306/.387/.497 (.884). Facing righties, and batting lefty, his line is: .265/.364/.430 (.794). So, he's got about a hundred point OPS edge against lefties. He kills them. Problem is -- RH hitters don't fare well in Safeco, while lefties are boosted a bit. The park effect for Safeco works against Bradley's strengths. But, the likely aggregate for 2010 is that Bradley will get pushed toward the center and hit around .840 from both sides of the plate. Branyan finished at .867 -- so Bradley certainly has the ability to put up an OPS in that vicinity. The problem here is that if Bradley posts an .850ish OPS, it will be pushed by BA, not by HRs. Seattle fans ignored Branyan's .251 batting average, because the HRs make an emotional impact. And Branyan's blasts were monumental - so it doesn't FEEL like he only hit 6 more HRs than Lopez. It FEELS like he hit 15 or 20 more. But, a 325 foot HR barely over the fence counts exactly the same as a 475 blast into the stratosphere.

The end result here is that unless he actually has another .321 batting average, Bradley is likely going to feel like a disappointment, even if he's posting an OPS in the mid-800s. Personally, I think the Cubs messed up Bradley's game by trying to make him a slugger. They started the season with him as a cleanup hitter, (which might happen in Seattle, too). But, that Cubbie team had Aramis Ramirez, Derek Lee and Alfonso Soriano already on the roster before Bradley arrived. That's THREE guys who had each hit more than 30 HRs on MULTIPLE occasions. And Bradley's production suffered - and did so in VERY strange ways. For his career, his power numbers have been basically even from either side - actually showing just a smidge more power as a RH batter. In 2009, he hit 11 HRs as a lefty and only a single HR as a righty. But, his OPS against lefties was .830 compared to only 764 against righties. He hit for 100 more points of BA when facing lefties - but saw his power completely vanish. Moving to a city where he can be more comfortable and removed from the media microscope of Chicago - it is likely Bradley will have a nice bounceback season. Just remember that an .850 OPS is still really nice to have, even if it doesn't include 30 dingers.

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Chone Figgins - UT - (switch hitter) - As a hated rival for the last few years, Figgins is more of a known quantity than some imports. Much of the discussion on Figgins has been about his defense (and his switch with Lopez). It isn't a stretch to call Figgins the poor man's Ichiro. But, when discussions of which would actually be better at leading off arose, I went and attempted to quantify the differences between these two lead-off types. The obvious difference is Figgins walks a lot - while Ichiro leads the league in hits year after year. This (initially) makes Ichiro seem like the better choice to hit second, (the walk, steal, hit combo creating more runs than the hit, steal, walk sequence). Upon closer inspection, the differences between the two hitters aren't NEARLY as wide as one would imagine. How can that be? Primarily because an INFIELD single is only the tiniest bit more productive than a walk. Ichiro accumulates almost 50 infield hits per season, (Figgins less than 20).

But, the comparison between the two is muddied further by the differences in playing time. Ichiro is an iron man, taking fewer than 10 games off each season - and always hitting leadoff. His plate appearance totals are without question the highest in the majors during his career. So, when people glance at yearly stat lines, Ichiro seems to be significantly better in nearly every category. But, Figgins totals are coming from seasons with 600-650 plate appearances, (only 450 in his injury years), while Ichiro piles up 750 PAs every season. An extra 100 trips to the plate is obviously going to make a difference in any countable. So, what happens if we normalize the two and compare them over say ... 700 PAs? Well, here is the comp based on Chone and Ichiro per 700 plate appearances:

Chone: 180-H; (18-IFH; 122-OFH); 26-2B; 9-3B; 5-HR; 48-SB; 17-CS; 70-BB; 8-GDP; 1-HBP; 238-TB; 356-TB+; 474-Outs Ichiro: 215-H; (47-IFH; 128-OFH); 24-2B; 7-3B; 9-HR; 36-SB; 8-CS; 44-BB; 5-GDP; 5-HBP; 282-TB; 363-TB+; 449-Outs

The IFH is infield hits, and OFH is outfield hits. The TB+ is total bases, plus walks and steals.

Ichiro comes out on top - but BARELY. Total XBHes is dead even, Ichiro getting 4 extra HRs, but losing a pair of doubles and a pair of triples in the comp. Ichiro's lead in total bases is almost completely wiped out when steals and walks are included. The GDPs penalize Figgins slightly, since he's spent a fair amount of time hitting in the #2 slot, (with more opportunities to ground into DPs), but it's no big thing in any case.

The hidden nugget in all this is that Ichiro gets a nice OPS push from all those infield singles, (those hits adding to both OBP and slugging), while Figgins walks add only to the OBP part of the OPS equation. But, the advanced stats are based on "normal" hit distributions. Ichiro is getting credit "as-if" his singles were coming with the standard distribution of infield to outfield hits. So, Ichiro's OPS and his RC/27 are getting subtle boosts beyond his actual value. Figgins career .751 OPS compared to Ichiro's .811 looks like a drastic difference. But, instead of a 60 point difference in value, the true difference is probably closer to 30 (or maybe even 20) -- historically, INTENTIONAL walks receive a penalty in the more advanced metrics, (assumed to be situationally leveraged), and Ichiro averages 16 intentional walks per season, compared to Chone's 1.

Not saying Figgins is better. He isn't. But, the delta between the two is MUCH smaller than even the most advanced offensive metrics of the day would indicate. The advanced metrics don't take infield hits into account - there just aren't enough players where it would matter to bother doing so.

That being said - Figgins in Safeco is going to be a particularly troublesome reality. Chone is the mirror image of Bradley. When hitting left-handed, he carries a .302/.372/.404 (.777) line. When hitting righty: .266/.340/.351 (.691). Once again, there is almost a 100 point difference depending on the side of the plate he takes. But, Figgins' strength plays WITH the park. He's a great lefty hitter in a park that helps lefty hitters. But, for his career, he doesn't even break .700 against lefty pitching. Of course, anyone with lefty starters wants to throw them when visiting Safeco. Figgins is going to particularly suffer in that situation. Truth be told, he is simply not a very good hitter when batting right-handed. His eye gets much worse - his power vanishes. I suspect as the year unfolds, the fans are going to get frustrated with Figgins when a lefty takes the hill. The quicker the club gets Tui onto the roster to sap some of those PAs away from Figgins, the better off the club will likely be.

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Casey Kotchman - 1B (LH) -- A lightning rod of ire with the masses, the general opinion of Kotchman is mostly "He's no Branyan!" This is, of course, very true. But, many have forgotten the underwhelming reception Russ got when acquired - ranging from "just bench fodder" to "if he gets more than 200 ABs, it's a bad move." The reception for one Franklin Guttierez was even LESS positive. So, first, remember that Jack has been ahead of the curve on most (but not all) of the hitters he's brought on board. The "who is Kotchman" analysis is troublesome for several reasons. First off, he was an uber-prospect who posted an .836 OPS in 143 PAs as a 22-year old in 2005. He lost 2006 due to a virus, (so there are these 88 PAs with a .436 OPS from '06 bringing his career numbers down), which delayed his first real season. In 2007, his first full year, he posts a .296/.372/.467 (.840) line, with a 53/43 eye, but only 11 HRs (and 37 doubles). THAT line - as a 24-year-old - is why Kotchman is in Seattle - (that, and he's left-handed). Oddly enough, that's almost exactly the kind of line that I think Carp could be capable of as a rookie. But Carp has defensive issues, (though I digress).

In 2008, Kotchman was having a disappointing, (but not awful), follow-up campaign. He left Anaheim with a .287/.327/.448 (.774) line. The curious part about this is his PATIENCE was way down (76 to 56), but his Ks went down. And his ISO actually slipped 20 points despite the fact his HR% jumped from 2.2% to 3.0%. My best guess is that he started trying to pull the ball, and when successful, the ball went out. But, his BABIP dropped from .305 to .279 -- probably because when he missed, instead of line shots to left, he was hitting lazy flies. My take? You've got a good Mark Grace wannabe that you start pushing to become a 30-HR guy - and it ain't working. So, you dump him for Mark Teixeira. (who wouldn't?)

The problem here is I think at this point we get off the "talent limitations" train and hop on the "psychosis subway". He leaves a team that was ALREADY 11 games up in the standings, to go to a new league - in a city 3,000 miles away - for a team going nowhere. That 2nd half of '08 in Atlanta, his SO% and BB% *BOTH* vault way up. His XBH% goes completely in the toilet. The stats say he was frozen stiff at the plate. Some of it was almost certainly having to completely start from scratch booking pitchers - but I think a lot was simple depression.

In '09, with a fresh start, his K rate improves, his BB% is solidly above average (so his eye is fine), his XBH% returns to something reasonable (7.7%), instead of the 4.0% from his '08 Atlanta games. Nothing outstanding, but he puts up a .282/.354/.409 (.764) in the first half -- starting to learn the pitchers. His OPS peaks at .866 in mid-May. Then he gets hurt, (and plays through it) to the tune of a .566 OPS for the month of June. After a DL stint - he comes back to hit .934 in July, raising his OPS 60 points during the month, before getting traded to Boston. The rest of 2009 was a disaster. (Again, I believe this is simple depression brought on by another team saying - "We don't want you, Kid," just as he's getting hot.

Ultimately, I think his career stats SERIOUSLY undersell his actual talent - because of the virus season - plus the two mid-season post-trade plunges. His .269/.337/.406 (.742) career line looks really bad. But, I believe his REAL line is closer to: .285/.360/.440. But, it's hard to see through all the noise. While his total line is low - what are his splits? For his career, he hits righties just a hair better than lefties (.751 to .712), which isn't a significant split for a lefty bat. Mostly, his power vanishes against lefties, though he has a postivie eye (129/122) against righties, and a slightly negative (28/44) against lefties.

The problem I see is that, because he is a first basemen, EVERYONE has expected him to hit HRs. So, at every stop, they fiddle with his swing, and try to coax out that 30-HR guy, (which I think never existed and never will). I think if you just let him loose and tell him, "Hit all the doubles you want!" that guy from 2005 could return in an instant. But, I also think he's got a tin-foil head, which mean his instinctive response to adversity is to roll over and play dead. He's the trembling Chijuajua beside Milton's rabid pitbull. I cannot comprehend two players that one manager would have to handle Soooooo differently.

I do, however, think *IF* he can get comfortable, and can avoid any ego-crushing speed bumps, he could post a .300/.380/.460 line without adding anything at all to his basic skill set. But, if his ego gets bruised - he could unfortunately, turn into Richie Sexson's little sister. With Junior and Sweeney in the clubhouse, I'd place my bet on the .840 rather than the .640.