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Who’s this season’s air force, the guys delivering the highest ratio of home runs to fly balls? It’s not a hugely significant thing, but it is interesting because it’s a reflection of power, generally among a subset of hitters who aim for the fences -- and reach beyond them.

Like the levels of scoring, majors-wide HR/FB ratios have gone down over the past six years, although it hasn’t been an inexorable slide -- the major-league average was 7.9 percent in 2006 and even 7.8 percent in 2009 before tumbling to 7.3 percent last year and then to 7.2 percent in 2011. To look at the leaders from the past several seasons, perhaps consistent with what you might expect homering on 20 percent of fly balls has become less frequent:


Looking at that, Bautista has a very good shot at being the first back-to-back champ in homers per fly ball since Barry Bonds did it in 2003-2004. Whether he does or doesn’t do it, the fact that you see several of the same people popping up again and again over the past few years should provide a handy reminder that this is a repeatable skill. Ryan Howard hasn’t regressed toward the mean (between 14-17 percent in the past three seasons) because it’s his statistical destiny; perhaps beyond any normal age-related decline, Jayson Stark identified the most significant systemic reason why; armed with better information and better tools, people learn and adapt.

Which brings us back to Bautista, the man who has essentially doubled his previously established standard for his HR/FB ratio in the past two seasons. After more than a 1,000 at-bats powering pitches into the wild blue bleachers at this level of production, it should be very clear that Bautista isn’t just some Brady Anderson knockoff. If you’re so inclined, you can blame the man in white, some variation of the breakfast of champions, climate change in Toronto or decide that Dwayne Murphy just must be the best hitting coach ever.

Maybe there’s even something to the last bit when you can consider the things that combined to hold Bautista back early on, like arrested development -- getting summoned up to the majors from High-A in 2004 as a Rule 5 pick would put a dent in anyone’s future, and history’s littered with A-ball hitters whose careers were stunted or ruined by being selected and then retained. Bautista had to follow that experience with years spent playing for several poorly run organizations before he finally arrived in Toronto in 2008. There, Bautista changed his approach, proving that in this day and age it isn’t just the men on the mound who can learn, adapt and succeed.

Christina Kahrl covers baseball for ESPN.com. You can follow her on Twitter.

Fifty-four different players have batted at least 100 times in the cleanup spot this season. Seattle's Miguel Olivo has been the worst, hitting .187/.224/.287 in 150 at-bats. The Mets' Jason Bay hasn't been much better, posting a .528 OPS in 86 at-bats (he hasn't homered). Adam LaRoche hit .186 for the Nationals. Jack Cust hit .205 for the Mariners. Justin Morneau has one home run in 182 at-bats while batting cleanup.

How do those compare to the worst cleanup hitters ever? As it turns out, Olivo and Bay are among the worst ever (or at least since 1974). Courtesy of ESPN Stats & Info, here are the five worst OPS totals while hitting cleanup since 1974 (minimum of 100 plate appearances).

5. Greg Vaughn, 1995 Brewers: 181 PAs, .177/.276/.266 (.542 OPS)

At least it made sense that Vaughn was hitting cleanup. He'd hit 30 home runs in 1993, 19 in the strike-shortened 1994 season and would hit 41 in 1996. He started the season in the four-hole but was hitting .229 with two home runs by mid-May and moved temporarily out of the cleanup spot. He hit .224/.317/.408 overall, he just never hit when batting fourth.

4. Dave Hostetler, 1983 Rangers: 160 PAs, .163/.288/.252 (.538 OPS)

Hostetler had showed promise as a rookie in 1983, hitting 22 home runs in 418 at-bats. Entrusted with the cleanup spot in '83, he flopped and his major league career was over by 1984 other than a brief appearance in 1988.

3. Joe Rudi, 1978 Angels: 182 PAs, .202/.254/.280 (.534 OPS)

Rudi was a good player, a guy who twice finished second in the MVP vote. Part of the first free-agency class in 1977, he signed with the Angels but spent much of the season on the DL. He began 1978 as the team's No. 4 hitter, didn't hit, and spent most of the season hitting fifth. He finished the year .256/.295/.416.

2. Pat Putnam, 1984 Mariners/Twins: 153 PAs, .177/.229/.227 (.456 OPS)

I remember this one. Putnam had been the Mariners' team MVP in 1983, which wasn't saying much since that team lost 102 games. It was his last bit of glory, as 1984 would be his final season in the majors.

1. Glenn Adams, 1981 Twins: 105 PAs, .126/.200/.179 (.379 OPS)

Adams was a career .292 hitter, albeit with little power, entering the 1981 season. Adams was never the regular cleanup for any period of time as manager John Goryl and Billy Gardner struggled to find any offense on a team that finished the season hitting just .240 with 47 home runs in 110 games.

By the way, of the 25 lowest OPS totals from cleanup hitters since 1974, only one accumulated at least 300 plate appearances -- Jose Lopez, of the 2010 Mariners.

Yes, it's been a rough couple of seasons for Seattle fans.

Follow David Schoenfield on Twitter @dschoenfield.

In his look at high-salaried players who might be released, Satchel Price writes about these four guys: Eric Chavez ($15 million in remaining contractual obligations), Jeff Suppan ($14.5 million), Dontrelle Willis ($12 million) and Pat Burrell ($9 million). All those guys are indeed candidates (and no, I wasn't impressed with Willis yesterday), but I want to specifically address the Chavez situation. Price:

I wondered aloud a couple weeks ago whether Chavez could be this spring's Gary Sheffield, as he battled for playing time at the infield corners and the DH spot with Jack Cust, Gabe Gross, Eric Patterson, Jake Fox and Adam Rosales. The assumption was that the A's would have Landon Powell as their back-up catcher, so they could only hold onto three of the players listed above, including Chavez.

Obviously, the A's opted to make some surprising moves to keep Chavez on the roster, by designating Cust for assignment and sending Powell to Triple-A, opting to use Fox as the team's back-up catcher. As a DH, the bar is set pretty high offensively for Chavez, and given his track record in the past five years (.250/.326/.441, essentially a league average hitter), it seems unlikely that he'll make for a good DH.

If the team wants to get Fox's bat or the quality gloves of Powell and Rosales into the lineup, the team may need to move Chavez.

Well, there's not a great deal of room for Rosales' glove regardless of Chavez, since the A's have Cliff Pennington at shortstop and Mark Ellis at second base. I don't believe Chavez's presence has a great deal to do with Jake Fox's at-bats, either.

The A's have played four games. In three of them, Chavez started at DH against a right-handed starter. In the other game, Fox started at DH against a left-handed starter. Considering Fox's history, platoon DH seems like the perfect job for him. Here's what I think. If the A's release Chavez, they'll simply summon Jack Cust from Sacramento to fill his accustomed role.

Here's my take on Chavez ... Billy Beane has a great deal invested in Eric Chavez. Not just the money. Beane once compared Chavez to Barry Bonds (in a good way). I don't think it's a stretch to suggest that Billy Beane loves Eric Chavez (in a baseball way). Beane's reluctance to dump Chavez is perfectly understandable. Which doesn't mean it's necessarily rational.

Even if we assume that Cust replaces Chavez at some point, that still leaves the A's with one-and-a-half (at best) catchers, as Fox hasn't been a real catcher since 2006. Presumably, he was moved from behind the plate for a pretty good reason. The A's don't have a day off until the 19th, and they're off again a week later; just two off-days in April. Something tells me that Jack Cust will get his chance, and so will Landon Powell.

An era is over:

Jack Cust became a free agent Saturday when the Oakland Athletics failed to offer him a 2010 contract.

Cust hit .240 with 25 homers and 70 RBIs last season but struck out 195 times, becoming the first player to lead in the AL in three straight seasons since Minnesota's Bobby Darwin from 1972-74. Cust whiffed 164 times in 2007 and 197 times in 2008.

--snip--

General manager Billy Beane has been determined to add more power to the lineup. The A's last week acquired third baseman Jake Fox from the Chicago Cubs largely because they like Fox's bat.

I like Cust as much as the next guy -- more, probably -- but this is exactly what you're supposed to do with marginal major leaguers like Cust: get the most out of them when they're young and cheap, and then dump them.

That's harsh, I know. If someone asks Billy Beane, he'll couch Cust's non-tendering in far friendlier terms. But he might also talk about Cust's "trendline" -- I haven't talked to him lately, but that used to be one of his favorite words -- and Cust's trendline is heading in the wrong direction.

In 2007, when Cust's services were essentially free, he hit .256/.408/.504.

In 2008, when he still was basically free ($410,000), he hit .231/.375/.476.

And in 2009, when he cost $2.8 million, he hit .240/.356/.417.

That's a steeper decline than we would have guessed, and so we might expect a bit of a comeback in 2010. Is it worth spending more than $4 million to find out, though? Probably not. This probably ends soon, and not prettily.

It's funny; I thought Fox and Cust would be perfect platoon partners. Was sort of looking forward to it, in fact. But with prospect Brett Wallace on the fast track, non-prospect Daric Barton might soon find himself in a limited role ... say, platoon with Fox?

Hey, a guy can dream a little, right?