The30YardSlant;4555135 said:
The general consensus on Josh is that he is one of the 5-10 most talented players in the history of the game from a pure raw skills standpoint. He is a five-tool player who has absolutely no limitations on the baseball field. If he had the work ethic and a better head on his shoulders he could have been the greatest ever.
Josh Hamilton doesn't try half as hard as many guys in this league and is still better than almost everyone. Keep in mind how good he is NOW after squandering almost half his career and spending two years out of the league entirely, and imagine if he had spent all that time working on his game.
I've never heard anyone say these things about Josh. Never heard anything about lack of "work ethic" or not trying "half as hard" as many guys.
In fact, I believe the consensus is the opposite. His injuries are largely attributable to how hard he plays the game. He crashes into walls, he lays out for balls in the gap, he slides headfirst even into 1B at times - all of which has caused injuries.
In addition when his batting average started to suffer a couple of years ago and he was struggling to hit lefties with big curves that broke away from him, he worked hard at going with the pitch and hitting opposite field and up the middle so he wouldn't be susceptible to pitches away from him. The result was that he hit .359 in 2010. Also, did you notice that 2 of his homers last night were dead center, and one to left field?
Josh is actually a more dangerous hitter now, because he is neither focusing on pulling the ball to RF for the big HR's, nor is he focusing on opposite field hits designed to make contact and get base hits. He is going with whatever pitch is thrown, and driving balls hard to all fields. That, to me, seems to be the result of working at his craft.
I just don't see that he is resting on his athleticism.
