Kotchman is pretty damn good...

Casey Kotchman is pretty damn good. And when I hear people say that his ceiling is JT Snow, I cringe.

Snow was one of my least favorite Angels of all time. Ever need a HR late in the game when leading by 8 runs? Snow's your guy. Sure, he had a good glove, but his stick was as untimely as Rod Carew's. (Yes, young'uns, Hall-Of-Famer Rod Carew was UN-clutch - ask an old timer.)

Kotchman is clutch and I think he will develop into someone who can hit 20-25 home runs a year. His real downside is his health. He seems to have been on the strange desert island that Dallas McPherson was on when he caught his injury bug. It's also the same bug that all basketball players get the day the sign with the Clippers.

In any case, what I was hoping to point out here is that Kotchman is having an incredible year.

He's hitting .307 (17th in the AL), has an on-base percentage of .372 (27th), a slugging percentage of .488 (22nd) and an OPS of .860 (21st). And all of this comes at age 24 after missing most of last season with a mono infection.

His numbers are really extraordinary if you take away the slump he had following his concussion. He was injured on June 16th, and I'm excluding the 19 games he played in from June 25-July21. I realize such an inclusion warps his stats, but other than that period, he has been solid all season. The sample size is pretty good as he has 267 at-bats not including his slump.

Excluding those games he is hitting .352 which would place him 2nd in the AL behind Magglio Ordonez. His OBP would be .418 which would be 4th in the league behind Ordonez, David Ortiz and Jorge Posada. His slugging percentage would be .562 which would be 3rd in the AL behind Alex Rodriguez and Ordonez. And his OPS would be .979 - tied for 3rd in the league behind Rodriguez and Ortiz.

I don't think he's quite that good, but I think he's a heckuva lot better than JT Snow.