Hafner looks forward to new season

[Pronk48]

Hafner looks forward to new season
Posted by Paul Hoynes February 24, 2008 00:38AM
Categories: Indians

Chuck Crow/The Plain DealerWinter Haven, Fla. -- It's not like last season changed Travis Hafner.

He still bickers with teammate Casey Blake on subjects ranging from car pooling to dogs. An example: Hafner and Blake usually drive to Chain of Lakes Park together every morning in spring training.

"I can't take this anymore," said Hafner. "He's getting a cab. I give him a ride, and he's on his cell phone all the time. I can't listen to the radio, and I can't talk to him."

Hafner, seemingly plotting revenge, said he's trained his 20-pound Australian terrier, Rudi, to attack Blake.

"The dog tried to bite my pinky toe," said an unconcerned Blake. "When we first got down here, I'd send my girls over to walk it. They're 4 and 6 so what does that tell you about the dog?"

Hafner still works overtime in the batting cage. For most of his career, he's started hitting in mid-January in preparation for the season. To get ready for this season, he was in the batting cages at Progressive Field in early December.

He still wears pro wrestling T-shirts, delights in his Super Bowl victory over Paul Byrd in the Indians fantasy football league and wipes the sweat off his face with his Chief Wahoo cap during spring training workouts.

What Hafner is trying to do, under the guise of normalcy, is leave last season behind.

"I'm really looking forward to this year," he said late last week in the Indians' locker room at Chain of Lakes Park.

Last year was a good one for the Indians and a mediocre one for Hafner. Could it have been a great season for the Tribe if its designated hitter was at his best? That is a question whose answer doesn't mean much right now. The Indians came within one victory of the World Series in October, but that was nearly four months ago.

"He had a human season," said hitting coach Derek Shelton.

Hafner hit .266 with 24 homers and 100 RBI. In his previous three years, he'd never hit below .305 with 28 homers and 108 RBI.

In 2006, Hafner led the American League with a .439 on-base percentage and a .659 slugging percentage. Last year, Hafner's on-base percentage dropped to .385 and his slugging percentage to .451.

"I never felt comfortable the whole year," said Hafner. "I never felt my swing was the same as it had been."

Everyone had a theory about what went wrong with the man called Pronk.

Most believed Hafner was distracted by contract negotiations that resulted in him signing a six-year, $65¤million extension during the All-Star break. Under his old deal, Hafner could have been a free agent after this season if the Indians exercised his final option year.

"It wasn't an issue at all," said Hafner. "It's easy for people outside baseball to say that, but it wasn't an issue at all.

"Baseball is my favorite thing to do. I love playing, I love hitting. When I come here, everything else doesn't matter. I just focus on baseball."

Others pointed to the opposition's use of a defensive shift against Hafner. Teams overloaded the right side of the infield against the left-handed hitting Hafner. The result was the loss of several hits on hard hit balls to the right side of the diamond.

"If you look at the way I was swinging the bat, it was the right defense to use against me," said Hafner. "In past years I never hit that many ground balls. When I'm swinging the bat well, the shift doesn't come into play because I put the ball in the air and use the middle of the field."

While Hafner conceded that the shift took its toll, he still felt his swing was at fault.

"My swing just felt long," he said.

A National League scout said Hafner tried to pull the ball too much.

"He was walking a lot, he was getting pitched around a lot, but he was still trying to pull everything," said the scout. "If he would have driven some of those balls up the middle or the opposite way, I think he could have gotten some of those teams out of the shift."

Hafner drew 102 walks, fourth-highest total in the league. Seventeen of those walks were intentional, second in the league. That meant the opposition still respected him even while he struggled.

"When I saw Travis in the second half, he was a little better," said the scout. "He wasn't trying to pull the ball as much, and his head wasn't coming off the ball."

Hafner hit .262 before the All-Star break and .270 after it. In the postseason, he hit .250 (4-for-16) with one homer and two RBI in the division series against the Yankees and .148 (4-for-27) with one homer, two RBI and 12 strikeouts against Boston in the American League Championship Series.

The Indians will try to repeat as AL Central Division champions with basically the same team that won 96 games last year. GM Mark Shapiro, instead of making a big off-season trade, is counting on Hafner and others to improve.

"Hafner has the ability to impact our offense more than any other guy," Shapiro said before the start of camp.

Some might cringe at such expectations. Hafner reduces them to the simplest form.

"The only expectation I have is to hit the ball hard in every at-bat," he said.

If Pronk is healthy, he'll be back to his typical stats of .300+, 40+ HR stats.

[love_that_reefer]

I like Hafner even if he is just a DH. The guy is just a masher and crushes everything he hits. You just know the first basemen are crapping their pants with fear when he comes to the plate.

[Pronk48]

I read somewhere once that he hit a ball so hard it broke the first baseman's hand when he caught it.