I think Ackley is a soft-headed little wuss. To be brutally honest. All of this glory shot pull swinging is like the kid on the basketball court who won't stop smack talking non-stop to cover for the fact that every shot he throws up clanks or catches air. He is confused, lunging, desperate...his only strategy seems to be..."swing hard and hope you hit it!" on every pitch he likes. He still has the good batting eye, but every time it's a strike he's desperate to make an impression. He's mentally soft. That's the way I see it.
I'd be curious to see counter-arguments...I'm sure there are lots of really good ones...I'd love to feel better about Ack...I just don't thus far.

I think it has to do with Wedge and how he has treated Ackley. I think he's got Ackley trying to do things he shouldn't be trying to do. Is it simply because Ackley's soft (or tightly wound) or because Wedge just doesn't know how to now put him into a position to succeed after all that's gone on? Maybe packaging Ackley is best for him and for us - it hasn't hurt Carp to change scenery. I'm really starting to think Wedge's "range" as a manager and leader is restricted.

IMO, the way to handle Ackley right now is put him in the line up every day, regardless of match-ups. He obviously has not "un-learned" his bad habit of pulling off the ball and leaving the outer third of the plate + the 2-3 inches off the plate uncovered.
Overall, he seems to be pressing as well. To help him relax and assist his un-learning of bad habits, I would tell him that he is in the lineup every day, regardless of results. Hopefully, that would relieve the pressing. He seems to be able to get his body under control and stop bailing out to RF later in games after a couple of ABs - so perhaps starting him every day would help him bring the last couple of ABs from the day before into the first ABs in today's game.
What I am reasonably certain of is this: starting him one day and then sitting him the next, then bringing him up to pinch hit in a pressure situation -- is not conducive to him relaxing and getting his body under control. I would give him 3-4 weeks of every day starts and if he is still flailing after that, send him back down to AAA.
My $.02.

I agree, Terry. Wedge essentially needs to put Ackley in the lineup and then ignore the results for as long as it takes for Dustin to straighten himself out. Just let him do it without facing expectations. Obviously, he'll still have the expectations of his teammates and the fans - but it looks to me like Wedge is the one that screws with his head.

Bat, I think you are on to something -- it appears to me that Wedgie and Ackley are oil and water. I think both are stubborn and have limited bandwith for dealing with tough problems that are not amenable to being solved the normal way each has solved them in the past. (Has anyone ever called Wedgie "creative"?)
Ackley's batting approach has always been successful in the past; he has never had to deal with failure -- so he appears to be having great difficulty in adapting / changing / re-inventing his approach to hitting. And Wedgie's taciturn, over-bearing personality does not lend itself to persuading Ackley to change and to being his cheer-leader in the process as Ackley has small victories along what is obviously a difficult path for the college hitter of the decade.
I think that it's possible that Ackley resents Wedgie's lack of sticking up for him with umpires - both on frequent bad strike calls on the "lefty strike off the plate" that Wedgie never protests and on plays in the field when umps have blown calls. E.g. - yesterday's blown call at 1B when Ackley should have been called safe and credited with driving in the winning run, right in front of Wedgie who never even raised an eyebrow, let alone throw his cap at the ump who blew the critical call. Ackley was clearly furious and Wedge did not come on to the field to support his player.
From my perspective, Ackley is much more important to the team's present & future success than Wedgie. I doubt that even the most ardent of Wedgie supporters think that he is an outstanding manager. At best, and this is being generous, Wedgie is an average MLB manager. Ackley, OTH, has the talent to be an outstanding ML ball player, a key player on the M's for a number of years. I definitely would not trade Ackley now when his stock is low.
If I were GMZ and I were convinced that Ackley would thrive under a different manager, I would fire Wedgie tomorrow. But of course I personally would fire Wedgie tomorrow anyway.

When Morse is back, make Saunders our full time CF and let Bay, Morse and Ibanez fill in the corners. Let Ackley learn OF in Tacoma, and keep hitting there. Give him a September callup to restore his confidence and to look comfortable in the OF. Then trade him in the off season, but do it for someone we believe in. Otherwise, keep him around and try again next season. But look for an opportunity in which someone out there will want to take a flyer on Ackley, and will have someone we would like to take a flyer on. I don't like this on the job training in the outfield when he's still a mess at the plate. How you gonna get comfy at the plate when every ball hit to you when you are in the field could be an adventure? He has nowhere to go for solace right now in the major leagues. He has to prove himself in two areas he is struggling at. That is a recipe for disaster, especially if Matt is right and he's a mental wimp.

I was just looking Dustin Ackley's 2011 season. And I started salivating about what that 23 year old player would mean to our team hitting lead off. For example, did you know he had 7 triples that year? The dude and his 120 OPS+ carried our offense as a rookie. Only Carp matched his efforts, and no one else was really close. The closest OPS+ after Ackley and Carp was Casper Wells's 111, and we know what the organization thought of him (the beaning paid a toll as it often does, see Morneau, Conigliaro, Puckett). We put a lot of pressure on his shoulders at the infancy of his major league career (Smoak as well, who carried the offense until Ackley appeared and faded fast). And look! The kid plays a great second base too!
It's not fair to be making light of his mental framework. The best explanation, to me, is that the organization fouled him up. Zduriencik correctly saw the error of his ways and went out to get some veteran hitters to make certain it didn't happen to this younger crop of rookies. Ackley could have used a soft landing like Seager got - low expectations, every success a pleasant surprise. Most rookies get that, and should get that.
Ackley needs a reboot, probably with another organization, and my guess is there's another player out there in a similar situation that Jack needs to locate. But Jeez, asking Dustin to reboot while trying to look competent as a major league outfielder - that's insanity. If it isn't, then you are showing an amazing amount of confidence in the guy. I know it was forced by injuries, but when Morse comes back, it needs to end. Dustin deserved the callup, and he maybe earned it, and that's important to note for any organization. But he needs to go back down and learn the outfield in a less pressurized situation.

I still maintain that they really mucked him up by trying to make him into a #3 MOTO guy. They need to tell him that his job is to get on base, period. Don't worry about hitting "doubles all over the yard" or pulling the ball for HR's or "living in front of the plate" or any other such nonsense. He's just not that guy.. His strength in the batter's box is his eye. Play to it. Walks and singles the other way are just fine - just put a .400 OBP target on his locker and tell him that's what you want from him.

(My efforts to find a suitable thread for this were futile, and Shouts quickly fall off the page, so here goes:)
Shouts have become so popular that, as I mention above, they quickly fall off the page and seem to be lost forever. While sometimes frustrating, this is GOOD news. It means we have a lively community.
I wonder if the Shout capability could be strengthened by capturing the shouts from each day and having them added as a separate post with a caption like "Shouts, July 5th" or "Shouts, 7/5/2013." That way they are not only preserved, but easily accessible. Also, it would add a perception of additional content that might sometimes alleviate just a BIT of the pressure to frequently produce content.
I have no way of knowing how hard this would be to do, but I would think the capability would improve the overall Klat experience for all their forums.

Yes...I'm not sure whether Klat can do this automatically or not...but some of the best conversations are happening in the shout box now...it would be nice if after the day...the shouts would go up as a community thread so that we could take our conversations to the comments of that thread. But if it's too much of a hassle for Klat, no worries. :)

Among AL players with 180 or more PA's Dustin Ackley is dead last in wRC+ at 45. That is even lower than Ryan's 46. This is one truly terrible ballplayer, you think. Then you see him tear up the PCL, and you think, "Wait. the guy hit a .972 OPS in Tacoma." Now, lots of people hit .900 or more in the PCL (I count 10 among just the qualified batters, of which Ackley is not with only 123 PAs. So these are only the guys who can destroy the PCL and still not get called up). I tend to think you better be up beyond .900 if you want a callup (e.g., Endy was at .948 when we called him up, Miller at 1.022 and Franklin at .912). Hitting .972 in AAA in a pitcher's park is pretty darn good. But he was also tapering off when he got the callup. But I am still skeptical if you don't push it past 1.000: Carp would still be in AAA if he hadn't destroyed the league with a 1.060 OPS in 2011 and forced the issue (take note, Liddi and Peguero).

Max: Chief, there must be SOME way to get this done.
Chief: Get WHAT, done, Max?
Max: 99, YOU tell him.
99: Right, Max. Chief, Max came up with the idea of collection Shouts daily and creating articles out of them.
Chief: That’s an interesting idea, Max, but there’s NO WAY we can get it done. Why, it would take a DOZEN skilled agents to do it. We don’t have that kind of manpower. You KNOW we have our hands full with CHAOS right now.
Max: Right, Chief. Say…Chief?
Chief: What Max?
Max: Well, Chief, maybe it wouldn’t take a dozen skilled agents. Maybe we could do it with TEN!
Chief: MAX! I don’t HAVE ten skilled agents to spare! You know that!
Max: Chief, how about six?
Chief: What?
Max: I think we can get it done with SIX agents, Chief. Would you believe we can do it with six agents, Chief?
Chief, exasperated: No, Max, I DON’T believe that. I don’t HAVE six agents to spare.
Max: How about FOUR agents, Chief? Would you believe we can do it with FOUR skilled agents?
Chief, a note of warning in his voice: MAX! I DON’T believe we can do it with four agents.
Max: Would you believe two porcupines and a chicken?
Chief: All RIGHT, Max! All RIGHT!. You win! You and 99 put your heads together, get Larraby and see what you can do! (turns and walks away, shaking his head slowly, then burying his face in his hands).

Melikes that too.

If I can throw my 2 cents in --
The "recent posts" block to the left has really become less useful with the advent of the tiles - there are less threads there than displayed as tiles. And the "recent comments", which are not linked to the threads are less useful than the Active threads tab. Change the left column to vertically-stacked horizontal tiles of Shouts by day with an "Editors choice" or "Reader's choice" set at the top; maybe three for jemanji/Spec/G and two for anyone else. Seven to ten days of shouts collected as days (or multiple days on off-days?) would be about right to catch up from being on a trip or such. Then the editor's choice could periodically extract interesting stuff too diffuse in authorship to be a tiled thread, but covering a topic of common interest. And any one of us could collect from the current tiles to have a consolidated topic of shouts we want to keep together and archive.
Then, as in the case of Thirteen's and my colloquy on engineering in the shouts, which I then wrote a post for, the background could be there for the thread as a link to collected shouts, so that those coming upon the article could see the genesis, and join the conversation more readily.
I could also see the daily minor league reports in a stacked vertical column on the left between the Blogroll and Shouts to make the tiled area for ongoing commented threads. Minor League report comments could then be collected in a common thread, with a tile at the top of the stack, for better continuity in this area, which is among my favorites, but because time marches on, tends to lose continuity in discussion.

It's called a "Snipping Tool" in Windows.

Above the blogroll, below the search, a semi-permanent site suggestion tile/thread for discussions like these and about technical tricks like GameDay capture, that the KLAT techs could know to scan periodically for suggestions/feedback/questions, but is open for comments from all site participants, so the best ideas percolate a bit.