I heard A.J. on Jim “Rack ‘Em!” Rome and he said that he lost a lot of weight because he felt he owed it to the White Sox, not that the team asked him to do it.

Also, like Hawk is always advertising now, A.J. said that the Nintendo DS game “Flash Focus” helped his hand-eye coordination and quick response.

Whatever the case is, he will definitely be earning his new contract if he keeps hitting like he did back when he was with the Twins even if his OPS drops back down to around .800.

I have to give AJ major props for coming into this season in excellent shape, which is clearly helping him on the basebaths, turning his usual singles into more doubles.

I also have to say that looking at his graphs, his underlying stats do seem to indicate he’s become a more patient hitter this season. His walk rate is way up and if he can keep it up will smash his previous career high. His strikeout rate is way down, hell, maybe the new contacts are helping—or maybe he’s just getting in better hitter’s counts with his newfound patience. He is seeing slightly more P/PA this year as well.

Continuing a trend that he started after ‘05, he’s continuing to hit more fly balls and less ground balls. His LD % is down just slightly this year. His BABIB is near his career average, so it’s not like he’s just getting lucky either. It seems he’s hitting more hard hit fly balls, if anything.

I’m not a big AJ fan, but his improved fitness and approach has turned him into a very valuable player so far this year. If he can finish with a line around 300/360/450 he’ll earn every penny of his salary this year.

I tend to agree Larry: His LD% is down yet BABIB is up. I think he’s finding some holes with his looping fly balls. He can’t continue to count on that. The improved patience however, is entirely repeatable. We’ll see if he stays patient when those fly balls top falling in for a stretch.

http://www.fangraphs.com/graphs/746_C_season_mini_9_20080515.png

and they are welcome ones if he can keep them up. if i had to guess where to look to see if his walk rate is sustainable, i’d check his pitches per PA. it’s at a steady 3.5 after two seasons of 3.4 and one of 3.6. so my guess is he’s not really changed anything, but the vision thing could in theory prevent him from hitting as many easily defensible batted balls which would in turn lead to a higher BABIP.

Where would this club be without A.J. I like his enthusiasm and attitude. It’s frustrating Thome and Konerko aren’t hitting. Ozzie can be a pain in the a__. We all love to hate Uribe. Swisher and Cabrera are concerns. But , call me optimistic, there is just something about this team I like. I can’t put a finger on it yet, but I like the way this team battles. The best example is the intensity of Quentin at the plate. This team has had chances to win nearly every game. Our pitching staff is a welcome surprise. This team will be there until the end.