Josh Hamilton is a bit of an enigma going into the 2016 season. At 35, he is going to be one of the oldest position players on the Texas Rangers roster. Not only that, but his history of drug and alcohol abuse combined with a recent history filled with injuries leaves one thinking, what in the world is Josh Hamilton going to do for the Rangers this year? There's no sure way to answer that questions, but I would not count Josh Hamilton out for giving the Texas Ranger fan-base another surprise or two. After all Hambone is one of the most insanely talented players to ever play baseball, whether his career reflects that or not.

At 35, most position players are usually on the lowest part of the bell curve for their careers or out of baseball entirely. Those who are still around and performing at a high level are usually special players who have been producing all-star caliber seasons year after year. Josh Hamilton might have been one of those players in another dimension, but some mistakes and a knack for weird injuries has derailed that. As it is Hamilton played a shortened season after being out of baseball for 8 months. He did not make spring training, his rehab assignment was short, and he ended up having only 182 plate appearances in 2015.

A Look at the Numbers

Josh Hamilton's 2015 numbers look fairly mediocre off the bat; a sub .300 OBP and a career high 28.8% K rate were causes for his 92 wRC+. There is a deeper story hidden there though. Hamilton had a 23% Line drive rate, an absolutely insane 21% HR/FB rate leading to his pace for 30 home runs in a 600 PA season, and a hard hit rate at 30%, which is league average.

One really weird stat is Josh Hamilton's ground ball stats. He hit an astounding amount of ground balls and pulled them weakly to the second or first baseman. This hints to me that his timing was off as historically he hasn't done that near as often as he did last season. In all those times he rolled the ball over to the second baseman, he only grounded into one double play all season, meaning there is still a bit of get up and go there.

Another interesting thing is that his splits were actually still pretty good. His OPS was fairly close for both LHP's and RHP's and his strikeout rates were almost identical. He hit for power against both as well. It's very possible that Hamilton isn't completely limited to hitting righties at this point in his career.

Analysis

First off let me get this point across, the bat speed is still there. Josh is still able to generate a massive amount of power with his swing and he still has some of the strongest legs/hip rotations in baseball. Hamilton is perfectly capable of hitting 25-30 home runs if the rest of the pieces fall into place, problem being those pieces could fall anywhere.

With a full spring training and off-season under his belt, I expect Hamilton's BB rate and K rate to regress towards his career 8.1% BB and 21.6% K rates. His strikeout rate will probably not be as low as 21.6%, but I think it is rather unlikely it sits at 28.3%. If it does stay poor or it gets worse, we are looking at the scenario where the Rangers need to start looking to our future franchise left fielders. If however, he maintains a 25% or under K rate, we could be looking at one more solid year from a great player.

Here is a look at a Josh Hamilton season of 650 PA's if he is able to replicate last season with a 25% K rate and an 8.1% BB rate.

An .819 OPS would put him around a 120 wRC+ and he would be one of the more productive offensive players in the league. If he can play slightly below average defense in LF like he did last season, he would be worth ~3.4 fWAR.

Now let's have just a tiny bit of probably unrealistic fun. Let's say Josh walks at his career rate, strikes out at his career rate, and has a moderately higher BABIP on his grounders, cause he got screwed a bit last season.

All of a sudden, just with a few twists Josh Hamilton is almost an all-star again.

Conclusion

Josh Hamilton is likely never going to produce at an all-star level again, although people said that about Alfonso Soriano before he put up one of his better seasons at 37. I do like his view on the subject when he said, "Nobody expects me to come back this year and be the old me, but I'm expecting it out of myself". I do think it's possible he comes back this season as a productive, maybe even good, player. The two scenarios where he becomes a 3+ win player is unlikely as his injury history and aging body probably won't let him hold up over the course of an entire season. It may be the case that he can't perform as anything other than a left handed bench bat/4th outfielder and there's no spot for him on the roster. I wouldn't bet against Josh though, I think he's still got "it".

Remember, worst comes to worse, the Rangers are out 4 million over the next two years and we can laugh with Hamilton at the Angels on the way to withdraw his insane paycheck. Oh yeah, and he gave us the best moment in Ranger's history.