When you look around Major League Baseball this season, there are some notable players who in the wake of the new crackdown on steriods are considerably lighter in weight and stature this season. Most notably, people stared when Pudge Rodriguez walked into Tigers spring training camp 30 pounds lighter than he had been last season. Now while Pudge has caught over 10,000 innings in the majors and is arguably the best defensive catcher of all time (perhaps offensive as well), I personally will choose to attribute his weight loss to injury rehab and the fact that his knees simply can no longer take a hard off-season weight lifting regiment. But his power numbers are down.

So why start with all this? Just before we hit the all-star break, the Jays were playing the Rangers in a series. Now the Rangers have an unbelievably powerful lineup and continually crushed the ball against the Jays, but as I watched the games, I couldn’t help but notice that

Laynce Nix is a sliver of the size he was last season. Listed at 6 foot and 200 pounds, either Nix was much heavier last season or he simply is not 200 pounds now.

Now again just like Pudge, I’m not making a steriod accusation, but the smaller stature of Nix has certainly led to smaller power numbers. After a promising 14 home runs in only 115 games last year, Nix has only 6 through 62 games this year which is 2 less than he had for all of 2003 when he played only 53 games and had 184 at bats.

While many will look back after the season and check the number’s of the Tejada’s, Sosa’s and Giambi’s, I’ll keep my eye on Nix this season.