Greg Halman had a lot to live up to coming into this season.  Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus dubbed him the Seattle Mariners’ top prospect based on his physical tools and 2008 performance.  He was the Netherlands center fielder at the start of the World Baseball Classic.  He was also in big league camp after the Mariners added him to the 40-man roster.

But after a dismal showing in the WBC Halman’s regular season wasn’t going much better.  When he made contact he was hitting the ball hard as over half of his hits went for extra bases, but he was looking pretty pathetic otherwise.  Through 57 games at AA West Tenn he was hitting just .183 with a ridiculous 103 strikeouts over just 14 walks.

It was at this point the Mariners decided to give Halman a mental break.  They put him on the DL and sent him down to the Arizona League to play for Seattle’s lowest U.S. affiliate.  It was here he hit rock bottom, striking out 5 times in his first 6 at bats against pitchers he should have been dominating.  A couple days later the mental break was over and he was back to West Tenn.

Since then, Halman has gone on to hit .340/.380/.894 in 47 at bats– including 7 homers and 5 doubles while striking out just 9 times– on his way to Southern League Player of the Week honors.

Welcome back, Greg!