For a few years now BJ Upton has had his name at the top of several high profile lists of the best prospects in baseball and the principle building block of a promising Devil Rays team being built through the farm.
So far this year he is hitting .304 with an OBP of .390, a slugging percentage of .498 and you can throw in 37 steals to boot which is pretty damn good at any level and is exceptional for a 21 year old.
I have a slight problem with the 106 strike outs in 474 at bats but it seems K's aren't the big deal they used to be.
So why do I feel he might be a bust? The number 46 is all I need say.
Usually 46 is not a bad baseball number. Good for home runs, doubles, stolen bases and a few other things. Not good in errors though. Like I said to Neil M of 3,079 Miles..., I never thought anyone could commit that many errors until someone actually did...not even Cano!
46 errors is a ludicrous amount for a whole year and he's still got time to make more. Hitting more triples than K's is one of baseballs Holy Grails but more errors than doubles is not. The only way you could do worse is to have more errors than RBI (his 64 RBI would be a tall order to top, even for him).
They figure this guy will be the starting shortstop for a number of years and they hit the ball a lot harder and more often in The Bigs so I doubt that will happen, but where do you put such a natural athlete? The outfield is stacked and you wonder about a guy who commits 46 errors (46!!!) spending time at any infield position. Its possible he could DH and it looks like the best option but not what Tampa were expecting I'm sure.
Of course he still is 21 and has plenty of time to develop but you wonder what effect all this fallibility will have on the guy? If he is driven it will drive him nuts and if it doesn't then you wonder about his drive. This guy has serious talent but he could end up doing more harm than good if he doesn't sort out his D. Anyone remember Jose Canseco?
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