There will be a player who has the Jeter-like ability to stay mostly healthy for 20 years, combined with an eerie refusal to decline like normal folks, and he'll have the best career out of anyone over the next two decades. At the risk of hyperbole and poor prognostication, it's probably the field. As in, if you make the argument between Trout, Harper, Machado, and any of the 1,000 baseball players to debut between 20, the answer just might be the field. If it was obvious in 2012, it's even more obvious now. The answer is still the same: Trout, obviously, followed by Harper and Machado. Two years in the future, they have a little more heft. They were all speculative puffs of mist we got out of the way because we knew they should be mentioned, and then we got right back into the wishcasting. The point is that we didn't see the injuries and slumps as tangible realities back in 2012. Please note that this all isn't meant to disparage any of these excellent players. Los Angeles Angels blog Halos Heaven Baltimore Orioles blog Camden Chat But like the other two, we're starting to see baseball encroach on what had been delightful, uninterrupted fairy tale, in which our hero arrives at an early age and just gets better, and better, and better, never slowing, never stopping. He's also in the middle of a wretched slump. M, Machado has been hurt (not really his fault), and his plate discipline has been less desirable compared to the other two (probably his fault). But the conversation is about the other two for a good reason. We really should be talking about him more. If the three youngsters were New York outfielders in the '50s, poor Manny Machado will have to be Duke Snider for a while. a real baseball player instead of someone from a comic book using baseball as his cover story. Trout hurt? Trout with back problems? Trout having the first extended slump of his career (which he promptly snapped the heck out of)? It's made him seem like. They were just quad problems, nothing that hinted at future calamity.Įxcept there's that baseball reality again. Miguel Cabrera had quad problems several MVPs ago. Except now it's at least worth wondering about that frame, with Trout missing time this year because of hamstring and back problems. At first, that seemed exciting, because we could dream of all that with 50-homer power. We don't know what Trout is going to look like when he's fully formed. There's also Trout, who is about the size of Mel Ott stuffed into Al Kaline. That bit up there about how Harper is unique because of his production/build combo isn't quite true. Its still ghoulish to point that out, but it doesn't feel inappropriate. There's a reason why Bob Horner went from a preternatural talent to out of baseball before 31, and it had to do with his body not cooperating. Suddenly, Harper has a touch of baseball reality about him. You can't hold his thumb injury (which happened during a slide) against him, but what about the knee surgery and bursitis? It's possible that the build is an issue, or at least something is an issue with Harper's frame. There aren't any great comps, even if you go through history for the Mel Otts and Al Kalines, because there hasn't been a 21-year-old with that kind of combination of production and build. When he's George Springer's age, he'll be a few months from free agency. He would still be the youngest player in the International League. Even if he doesn't get a lick better, he's already fantastic. Harper, when healthy, is a fantastic player already. That is, people who don't understand just how rare it is to see a player as young as Harper to perform as well as he already has, and what the history of baseball wunderkinds tells us. The comments of the ESPN article are filled with people laughing at Bryce Harper going #2. Retro Mike Trout: Making fun of stat dorks Two years later, and everything's the same.Įxcept nothing's the same. Trout, Harper, and Machado were the first three position players taken. On a recent episode of Baseball Prospectus's Effectively Wild podcast, Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller revisited the question, inspired by ESPN's Franchise Player Draft. FINE, OKAY, JEEZ, Machado) columns were a natural reaction to an unnatural phenomenon. How often does baseball get two players under 20 with such incredible star potential? It was Halley's Comet, a celestial event we were lucky to live through. Final sentence not mentioning Manny Machado, which will irritate the absolute heck out of Orioles fans. Eventual conclusion siding with the guy currently having the best season from anyone since Barry Bonds retired because this isn't limb-going-out class, pal. List of great players who were great before 21. You could watch television on your phone, but with a slight, almost imperceptible reduction in performance compared to what we're used to now. Insane Coaster Wars had just debuted on the Travel Channel.
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