he had a very peculiar season last year and you could easily call 2012 a Tale of Two Seasons for our All Star third baseman

he batted .355 for April/May/June and .263 for July/August/Sept-Oct

he wound up batting over .300 for the season for the first time since '09 but it was because of his torrid 3 month stretch early on....

and before we jump on the he didn't have anyone hitting behind him theory how is it that he hit .355 while Ike was having a horrific first half winding up with a .203 batting avg on June 30th? and then David went on to hit .263 while Ike was batting .249 the rest of the year

so which David should we expect?....over the past 3 seasons as far as batting avg is concerned other than the first half of '12 he's shown a marked decline in that stat

i don't have an explanation,and i'm not sure there's a good one, for David's Two Seasons last year but i wonder what we should honestly expect from him moving forward

if players around him actually provide him some protection (which he hasn't had since 2008), then he will do fine

but again,how do we explain David tailing off as the hitter behind him got hotter the second half if it's just a matter of protection?

Could be overall pressure. The first half the team played well as a team. While Davis did not, everyone else seemed to get on, and the offense clicked. The second half of the season, the only guy to hit was Davis, and maybe Wright felt the pressure to deliver and fell off.

In reality, it is hard to be consistent for a full season. We will see both DWs this year, we just hope the 1st half from last year stays in the lineup longer.

in the first half last year, everyone around him was getting clutch hit after clutch hit....we had a ton of 2 out rbis. After they got exposed and pitchers knew how to pitch to them, they probably pitched around Wright more often.

I think Davis will be good enough protection this year.

"In reality, it is hard to be consistent for a full season. We will see both DWs this year, we just hope the 1st half from last year stays in the lineup longer."

Very true.

hope > "think"

I have to go with the prevailing opinion so far. It's not so much the lack of protection as the general "health" of the offense around him. During much of the first half it was pretty good. During the last three months it was poor. Wright seems like the kind of player who puts alot of pressure on himself to hit the five run home run. And the more he tries to do that, the less successful he is. I think the offense was flying between 2006 and 2008 and so were his personal numbers.

As far as your original question is concerned, I don't expect the offense to be all that much better than last season. Therefore, I expect he'll probably hit around .290, have 20ish home runs and have 90 plus RBIs. There's nothing wrong with that. I just don't see him putting up some of the more lofty numbers I've seen written around here the last few days.

As long as he plays like he did from June-September last season he'll be more than good enough protection for David. I have no reason to believe he'll slump like he did the first to months of last season.

Well there is the fat contract and no team records on the horizon...a bad sign.

certainly as good a theory as any,might have had more to do with the team's struggles than Davis'

then we'll have to be on the lookout for the "just signed a big contract and now i have to carry the team" mentality that someone like David (because he puts his heart and soul into this team) might adopt

let's hope Wright wasn't one of the hitters the pitchers figured out

yeah,i can see those numbers too, 20/90/.290....not bad,really,but not the kind of numbers we saw from him in the past when he was surrounded by Reyes,LoDuca,Beltran,Delgado,and Floyd

if that's the kind of lineup David will flourish in where will those type players come from?

"let's hope Wright wasn't one of the hitters the pitchers figured out"

Don't worry he's not.

I think Wright will have another solid year this season. .300 batting average with 20-25 HRs. He'll have some great months and some not so great months just like he always does.

I really do believe that once Wright gets good protection around him, he will start hitting for more power. In 2009, CF, the loss of Beltran AND Delgado, both contributed in Wright's power drop. After that, he completely changed his approach by trying too hard. That brought back the 30 hr power but at the cost of more K's and a drop in avg. I believe Ike will have a big year so that should help. I already predicted Wright to have a monster year: .364/.446 obp, 37 hrs, 132 rbis...or something like that :)

lol,Keith just brought up the same point of David's first half not matching up with Ike's second half

said it "didn't compute"

Mex is stealing my thunder here!

Maybe he read this thread lol

If he is lost at the plate it dont matter if you surround him with 8. Trouts in the lineup it wont help.

If there is a deadly force hitting right after you, chances are you won't get pitched around as much and therefore will get more pitches to hit.