You can't possibly be serious. He wasn't hitting for contact or power and wasn't getting on base much. His approach at the plate at times bordered on masochistic. He looked washed up to everyone. Hendry took a flier on the guy hoping a change of scenery or for that matter was better than what he was putting up in Oakland. Hendry gambled right only after he gambled wrong. And by the way, it's not scouts vs. 'sabers'. The two are complimentary, not mutually exclusive. I guess I'm mixed up then. I thought Gary Hughes was a scout. I also thought that Hendry pursued this deal after Hughes recommended Kendall, after Hughes actually watched Kendall play, in person, on a baseball field, several times. So you tell me -- who was it that Kendall looked washed up to. Because it wasn't the scout that was sent to evaluate him. As best I can tell, that leaves the sabermetric guys that glean their knowledge predominantly from stats and websites, and form their judgements based on the numbers their computers spit out at them. as bad as kendall was in Oakland, wasn't he even worse to begin the year? Wasn't he hitting like .295 in June for Oakland when he was traded? I could be off base, but I feel pretty sure I heard that correctly. That would support at least some of the speculation that he would/has done better than his previous numbers this year indicated.