Happy Nick Year!

Another recurring theme you're going to hear from me going all through the rest of the offseason and into spring training is the importance of Rich Harden's health.  As a matter of fact I'm going to probably mention it in so many different places that you're going to be begging me to stop come April of next year.

But another key to the A's success in 2007 is going to be the evolution of Nick Swisher.  Making up for the loss of Frank Thomas won't just be on the rebound of Chavez, Crosby and Ellis, but the maturation of Swisher as a hitter.

Swisher's career high batting average was last season and it was only .254.  His true leap forward last season was in slugging percentage where he went from slugging .446 his rookie year to .493 last year.  His .864 OPS last year was second only to the Big Hurt on the A's as were his 35 home runs.

If you look at Swisher's comparables according to Baseball Reference, there's an interesting range of players with everyone from Phil Plantier to Carlos Delgado seemingly being the range for where Swisher was at 25.  I tend to believe that Swisher will be the quintessential Moneyball player in that he may never have a tremendously high average but he will always get on base, but strike out a lot.  Michael Lewis was very accurate when he told me that Swisher purposely works himself into good counts so that he can swing as hard as humanly possible.

One thing that concerns me about Swisher is his batting average with RISP.  You could call last season a fluke, but his overall career batting average with RISP is .205 so 2006 is not that far off.  That philosophy of being patient may well just go out the window for him.  If he can reel it in and not get anxious, I think Swisher could be a huge key to how the Oakland Athletics perform in 2007.  Mike Piazza will not replace Thomas alone, but continued growth from Swisher combined with a rebound from the aforementioned players, the A's offense could be better in 2007.

Course as with Harden, that's a really big "if".