This is not intended as an indictment. I truly welcome folks smarter than me who have studied this team more carefully to weigh in here. If the answer is simply a combination of hitters' park, bad luck, injuries and only modest draft position, then so be it. if Moneyball rears its head, by all means tell me how and why.

But I got to thinking instead of grousing over a permanently sputtering offense and hoping somehow, somewhere there is a star or two at the plate on our horizon.

In the BB era-- 1998 and beyond-- how many true hitting successes have we seen?

I think the answer fills just the fingers in one hand, and maybe just the fingers in Mordecai Brown's hand. The three i feel most confident about are Giambi, Tejada and Thomas. Two users and a guy who had already built an HOF career elsewhere. Swisher and perhaps Cust might also fill the bill-- and that, sadly, is about it. Question that judgement?

Go around the horn:

Catcher-- Ramon Hernandez was a valuable player whose hitting did improve somewhat-- but I don't think you can call him a hitting success. Miller was a stopgap. We got one OK year out of Kendall and you know the rest. Suzuki shows some promise but too soon to tell;

First Base-- Giambi of course. Since then, hmmm. Hatteberg was good at first (pun intended) but tailed off pretty miserably his last two years here. Karros was a bust. Pena turned into a decent hitter but well after BB's patience ran out. DJ never lived up to his promis. I hate to say it, but if someone had told me that some player-- possibly alcohol induced-- was dumb enough to dive into the shallow end of a swimming pool during the ASB and smack his head, I'd have thought almost instantly of Barton. Swish never was a full time IBman here, but he was a success, IMHO.

Second Base-- we got 2 decent months of Frankie Menechino, and then he was terrible. 2 rented months out of Durham 6 years before the Brewers are doing the same. Some "roid influenced decent play out of Velarde. Scoot wasn't all that bad. And Ellis. I'd have to call him hit and miss (pun intended) offensively along with his superb defense.

Shortstop-- Mr Swing at Anything turned into a pretty darn good hitter. Bobby crosby did not.

Third Base--Who knows what wwe would think if Mr. Injury hadn't come calling a couple of years back? But Chavy was enigmatic even then-- maybe everyone associated with the organization overrated his talents. He was always above average, after all, if not an outright star. Can't call him anything but a qualified success though. And the various backups and stopgaps have all been mediocre or worse.

Outfield-- Just start listing names and realize that their best years have either come elsewhere or just never happened. Grieve. Long. Piatt. Jeremy. damon. Dye. Justice. McMillon. Kotsay. Kielty. Payton (maybe the closest thing to a success given his prior track record) Singleton Bradley (woulda coulda shoulda?? I just can't decide who was to fault on this one) Stairs (he is a success but he left after 1999 so it's hard to count him) and now Buck, Brown, Putnam. Let's cross fingers about Ryan Sweeney and CarGon-- too soon to know. And again Swish has to be included somewhere. We did get a couple of decent months out of Jose Guillen, FWIW.

DH and Fillers-- Jaha was a success for one year-- and I'm going to assume it wasn't only for natural reasons. Saenz and Durazo had impact, but both their careers here ended so strangely that I can't really count either one of them. Durazo in particular was supposed to be so much more. Thomas is clearly a success. Cust less so but probably all in all more plus than minus. Piazza was OK.

Maybe given the park and the monetary realities this isn't so surprising. But boy it seems that most of the guys that come here simply do not perform at the plate. Anyone care to react??