Kennedy, Adam

To be fair, we have seen this Kennedy before, in his age 27 and 28 seasons with the Angels. Forced into service due to . It wasn't exactly the Garden of Eden, but Adam is offering us an apple for 2010, do we take a bite?

Kennedy spent most of 2008 and 2009 batting 7th and 8th for the Cardinals, most of the time hitting in front of the pitcher (remember the Cardinals are one of the teams that bats the pitcher 8 now and again). He saw almost no pitches, but took his swings anyway. In 2009 he not only saw pitches, not only took some swings at them, but actually made contact with them, including a rather freakish 71% on pitches out of the zone. Which is to say you'll want to be seeing where he bats in the Nats lineup and not expecting him to maintain that contact rate.

Kennedy was, in many ways, a victim of his own success. After the good, if not spectacular, 2003 and 2004 seasons, he hit .400+ in May of 2005 and decided he was a .300 hitter. He started going for contact, which he achieved at the expense of actual hits, home runs, walks. .265-65-5-45-10. 475ABs