One can pontificate as to whether the A’s were premature in working out an extension with Lawrence Butler or whether they were savvy to get a very affordable deal when they could. Either way, what’s hard to dispute is that following a promising start to the season, Butler has tanked something fierce.
How bad is it statistically? He has 75 plate appearances dating back to April 23rd (the day Nick Kurtz was called up and Tyler Soderstrom moved to LF). In the “Nick Kurtz era” Butler is 11 for 74 — that’s a .149 batting average — and he walked exactly once (.