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Saltalamacchia: Hopes and Likely Realities

Well, we have arrived at the Jarrod Saltalamacchia era. It starts tonight. Strap yourself in, not because it will be a ride, but more because it will be like electro-shock therapy, and you don't want to know where they are going to be fastening those electrodes, no sir.

Well, this isn't the first time the Diamondbacks have acquired a player who was woefully underperforming. It's happened before. In fact, it happened multiple times in the 2011 season, which is also the last season we remember fondly. A quick recap of those acquisitions.

Early in the year, second base was the 2011 version of catcher this year. Through August 23rd, the position was manned by Kelly Johnson (106 starts), Ryan Roberts (22 starts), and Willie Bloomquist (1 start). We don't think of those players as terrible, but Johnson had an OPS+ of 88 and a batting average of .209. Bloomquist hit for average, but was worse from an OPS perspective. Roberts, while posting respectable numbers on the whole, was terrible when he played at second, hitting .202 with an OPS of .600.

Enter Aaron Hill. He had been having a dismal year to that point, with offense almost exactly at Tuffy Gosewisch levels (hitting .225, not getting on base, OPS+ of 58) while rating as a slight negative defensively. One would be forgiven for accusing KT for re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Of course, all that Hill did the rest of the season in the desert was slash .315/.386/.492 and of course followed it up by doing even better in 2012 and was also good in 2013 before his injury. He announced himself by going 0-for-4, but would only fail to get a hit in 6 games for the rest of the season. He also knocked a homer in Game 4 of the NLDS. This was a deal that couldn't have gone better for the D-backs (and remember that Hill had to clear waivers to be dealt. No one wanted him at that point.).

What about Sean Burroughs, once upon a time a top prospect in the San Diego Padres organization, coming back from multitudinous issues? He hadn't been seen in the big leagues since 2006, when he hit .190 in 25 plate appearances with the Devil Rays, quite possibly the worst team in baseball at the time. He didn't work out quite as well, as he generally was used as a late replacement and didn't do much with the bat, but he did provide all the offense against Jordan Zimmermann on August 23rd, in a 2-0 win that gave the D-backs 70 wins for the year. (And, coincidentally, was the day before Hill made his first appearance).

On the far end of the spectrum from Aaron Hill, there is Cody Ransom, who picked up a game winning home run off Clayton Kershaw (something which looks far more impressive now) but still only appeared in 12 games, largely because of his .152/.243/.303 slash line.

Most likely, Saltalamacchia is closer to Ransom than to Hill, or even Burroughs, when it comes to picking up players who just haven't been cutting it elsewhere. But hopefully he'll provide a nice moment in his time here, and if he does improve at anything close to the same level as Hill, he'll be an instant improvement offensively. If not, at least we now have a name even longer than that of William VanLandingham, who once started a game against Jason Isringhausen, which has to be some sort of record.