Jason Giambi

His Do-or-Die trial is over. In the six games, he hit .320 with a .370 OBP and a .480 SLG.

He passed. One point I'd like to make is he did this while only walking twice.

Normally, you'd expect him to get 5 or 6 walks in the same span of ABs, but with his Yankee career on the line, he became more agressive at the plate. To no ones detriment I might add.

Is it possible the ascendency of OBP coincided with the wide-spread use of performance-enhancing/recovery-accelerating drugs? And if this is so, would the descendency of those drugs lead to a more agressive style of hitting?

After all, no teams wins without putting the bat on the ball. And no hitter can keep his job drawing walks without getting hits - as Giambi was doing prior to the Yankee's ultimatum.

His value will get no lower, and if not for the three games in the NL, he'd get harder and harder to obtain. But pinch-hitting in at least two of the next three games will tamp down the rise in value.