Khapun Khrob!

His second hit was a line drive rapped to right.

Both, well hit, well timed. His swing is quick, not especially powerful (based on only a couple chances to see him) Showed no evidence of overswing. Too hard. Sounds like nonsense to me.

I can’t wait to see him play in the AFL and at upper levels. I would guess that he squares everything, partly because pitchers have less late movement here than at higher levels. The key will be how well he adjusts, just as it is for every other hitter.

But, i think he has talent.

That may seem like a good thing, but it would free up Descalso to play second base which he is trained to do.

That may seem like a good thing, but if people saw how good Descalso is at Second base and realize that his hitting, despite playing only sporadically is practically equivalent with Schumaker’s would lead people to question why Schumaker was at second all season.

Worse, it would lead people to question why Schumaker will be at second all next year.

A mullethead curmudgeon has to make certain that everybody takes him at face value. To do that, he must make certain they never have the opportunity to gather evidence.

One of my favorite features is when John—whose analyses do the best job of incorporating scouting reports and actual on-field performance— reviews his past prospect lists.

In these retrospectives, he elaborates on why some hitters & pitchers went on to match, exceed, or fall short of expectations. As far as hitters go, the “underachievers” typically stagnate because of plate discipline issues (e.g. Corey Patterson, Jeff Francouer, and many others), injury (Nick Johnson, Jeffrey Hammonds), lack of power development (Sean Burroughs, Mark Kotsay), or inability to find a permanent defensive position.

You’ll have to look a very, very long time to find a comment like: “Hitter X didn’t fulfill his promise because his max-effort swing, although unbelievably successful at lower levels, didn’t translate against better pitching.”

This player doesn’t exist.

If Taveras struck out a lot, that’d be one thing. But he doesn’t. If he generated the vast majority of his power from the pull side, that’d be a minor red flag I suppose. But he doesn’t. If there were platoon issues, I’d be a bit cautious about predicting stardom—but O.T. hit .360/.440/.593 against southernpaws this year…with a firm 11/17 BB/K ratio.

A couple other people said it best: If Taveras had signed for Carlos Martinez money, he’d be a consensus top 10 prospect right now. Maybe top 5. Which is where he belongs. :)