He led the NL in walks that year. Had a respectable 19 home runs. But in context, those 19 came after 27, 31, 32, 31, 33, 36 HR seasons. So not as good. Advanced metrics put his value in the range of 3 wins. Pretty good. Not necessarily worth what Atlanta paid him for, but nobody is going to turn away a 3 win player.

In 2013, he slipped further. His line was .179/.309/.362. with a career high 171 strike outs. He still walked a lot, 77 times. He also hit 22 HRs. But his mediocre defense slipped and he made more base running miscues. As a result he was somewhere between replacement level and the worst everyday player in the majors.

In 2014, he regressed again. Through 48 games, his line was .149/.229/.213. Same rough defense. Only now he was walking a little less and had lost his pop, basically the only two things he'd done well. So Atlanta, which had agreed to pay him $62 million over 5 seasons, just ate the money and cut him. The Giants picked him up on a whim. He played 4 games. Got no hits. Walked once. Struck out 6 times. And made 2 errors. They cut him a few weeks later. Got a World Series ring though.

So the Nats picked him up off the scrap heap for basically nothing and gave him a shot in spring training. The storyline was that he had corrective eye surgery and all of his problems the last couple of years could be blamed on that. And to his credit, he had a good spring training. In 46 plate appearances he hit .261/.433/.457 with 2 HRs. 13 BBs and a respectable 9 strike outs. That's the kind of player Dan Uggla was when he was good.

So with Rendon hurt, Escobar playing third to start, and Espinosa still Espinosa, the team figured he'd be a better option than Kevin Frandsen because he could beat Kevin Frandsen in a arm wrestling match (or something like that).

The kicker is, a year earlier, in the midst of a stretch where he was one of the worst regulars in baseball, before being cut by two teams, in 2014, his spring training stats were:

52 plate appearances. .269/.403/.538 with 4 HRs. 12 BBs and 18 Ks

So, you can choose to believe the eye surgery turned back the clock and his good spring training was the proof of that. Meaning that while he still can't run or field, he can draw a walk and mash to such a level that he is still a player you want in your line-up.

Or you can say that a good spring training meant nothing last year, so why give it weight this year? Maybe the escalating strike outs and decreasing power wasn't so much attributable to poor eye sight but age and declining bat speed. And that you can look at 4 weeks of ABs against some guys who are riding a bus for the Quad Cities River Bandits right now, and say that's nice. But you'd prefer to look at four years straight of declining offensive production at the Major League level over 2000 PA and little else to contribute on the field or on the bases.

I choose to look at the latter.

But, with the Braves footing the bill, it might have been worth basically whatever the cost to house and feed him was to find out. I just think he's completely done as a major league ballplayer. Maybe he can play it out in Japan if he wants to start somewhere this year.