If you hadn’t noticed, Russell Branyan is playing like A-Rod.

http://sgrlb.baseball.sportsline.com/news/10875095

… and backs up the tease with this …

In his first 22 games this year, Russell Branyan is putting up A-Rod stats, but his track record suggests something much more modest in store for the long haul. Despite his career .231 average, Branyan has enough power to be a legitimate bubble candidate.

Player Walk Rate Whiff Rate Iso Power H/BIP Runs Created RC/27
Russell Branyan 14% 38% 0.530 32% 23 13.0

http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?gid=2008_06_23_poraaa_tacaaa_1&t=g_box&did=milb

… Thatcher getting the W to get to 3-0 (1.15) …

http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?gid=2008_06_23_sanaax_mroaax_1&t=g_box&did=milb

http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?gid=2008_06_23_wmiafx_ftwafx_1&t=g_box&did=milb

http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?gid=2008_06_23_spoasx_eugasx_1&t=g_box&did=milb

… plus 2 hits in 7-4 (where opponents scored 5 unearned runs in the 5th) …

Why not throw out his away stats like that? It’s just as arbitrary as throwing out his home stats (unless there’s something about his ballpark that makes it a bandbox – in which case you adjust the stats accordingly; or there’s something unique about his ballpark that he takes special advantage of – say a 300 foot right field fence, but I don’t think either of these caveats apply).

Other issues: you’re worried because he somehow hits lefties better than he hits righties? It seems to me like that’s a great thing. All the possible problem splits suffer from small sample size and questionable meaningfullness, and even the bad results you’re citing aren’t actually that bad (his OPS is well over 1.000 for basically every split). If you’re worried about him hitting against good competition, as mentioned he did quite well on the Cape hitting with wood bats.

Also, re what other organizations would do doesn’t matter: doesn’t this run contrary to your arguments in the past that, if it were the Diamondbacks (or some other team with a good draft record) targeting a reach like Dykstra, then we could have confidence in it, but since it’s a terrible drafting team like the Padres, we have to regard it as a massive reach. And now you’re saying, it doesn’t matter what the Diamondbacks think, it was still a big reach and a bad pick.

…Second, when Edmonds was released by the Padres, he stopped using the medicine he’d taken for nearly two years after suffering concussions in St. Louis. “Right away, I felt the difference.”

That sucks

There are questions about possible holes in his swing, but I don’t see a reason to doubt that the power is there. He’s shown plate discipline, too, but so did Khalil Greene in college so we should take that with a grain of salt.